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I get asked that question and various riffs on it like “why do Asians hate black people?” and “why do Asians only stick with other Asians?” all the time. While these questions may seem rude, I take them seriously, not least because they contain seeds of truth, even if they’re ultimately based on misinformation.

Before I get into what I meant by that, perhaps, confusing statement, let’s get real about racism. Racism is distinct from ordinary bias because it was created as the justification for and original blueprint of a society in which race and class were pretty much the same thing. Class is how wealth and therefore power is organized. So, race and power are inextricable. And while parts of the original racist blueprint have changed over time, we built real structures and institutions, like our electoral college, ghettos, and suburbs, just to name a few examples, based on that blue print. We can change our minds about the original design, but unless we dismantle and rebuild those structures, we’re stuck with the inequities they create.

This creates a situation in which white racists are no more morally bankrupt than any other brand of bigot, but they are more effective. After all, white as a racial category was created as the basis of a white supremacist political and economic system, just as “Asian,” and “Black,” etc., were created in order to dehumanize and subjugate non-whites within that same system. Even if you perceive Asians to be “so” racist, we’re certainly not more racist if you measure racism in terms of broad impact. And in addition to the structural racial inequality that is the legacy of this history, keep in mind, our political system in based on majority rule.

But there’s more. Asian immigrants almost never arrive here with an understanding of “Asian” as a race nor of the racial attitudes that prevail in the U.S. They have to be taught. New arrivals are inundated with racist messages as they grapple with what it means to be “American,” often without the benefit of actually knowing members of the racial groups that are being defamed, and without access to contrary sources of information in the languages we speak. Imagine what it would be like to be a Vietnamese immigrant landing in Brownsville, New York’s blackest neighborhood, where 93% of residents have been stopped and frisked by police.

Newly arrived immigrants assimilate a culture in which it is business as usual for American authority figures to arbitrarily pick out black people and treat them like criminals. It’s not that hard to see why many reach the conclusion that black people are prone to criminality, a racist impression that will be reinforced by TV, conservative politicians, movies, and popular music. But we all consume these same messages and “all” of us includes a lot of other immigrants, from many parts of the world, including Europe. So are Asians more racist? I doubt it. Instead, I argue we are less subtle when we express our ill-informed bigotries because we often don’t understand the accepted racial etiquette that we use to avoid provoking racial confrontations.

But racial “etiquette” should not be confused for an absence of racism, nor, particularly, of an anti-racist mind-set. Knowing and living in that etiquette simply means knowing how to avoid an argument or the label “racist.”

Oh, and what’s more, that etiquette tends to make racism more rather than less difficult to combat by forcing it underground.

The process of assimilation tends to twist many American national characteristics into caricature as immigrants for whom these characteristics are exotic attempt to distill and adopt them. This makes these characteristics, like racist beliefs, especially apparent.

But while Asians are certainly guilty of racism, we are also among its victims. That might be why 76% of Asian Americans polled by the National Asian American Survey support affirmative action against 14% who are opposed. Asian Americans also tend to favor humane immigration reform and Obamacare. These are all racially charged issues, especially in how they are treated by national political leaders. Yet, Asian American opinion on these issues seems unaffected by negative racial stereotyping.

And this thing about Asians only liking other Asians? Well, that’s sort of true, though I’m not sure “like” is the right word. Identify might be a better one. The peculiar way that Asians are treated results in a shared experience that most folks can’t relate to unless they’re Asian. So, many Asians do tend to identify very strongly with other Asians, especially those that belong to their particular ethnic heritage groups.

Imagine, for instance, that you are an Asian immigrant from Cambodia who came to the U.S. as a refugee of war. Being a war survivor, I’m guessing, is likely to amplify the degree to which you will identify with others of your ethnic group who are also war survivors and, by the way, maybe the only people in your community who speak your language. Then add to this the way in which you are treated – having people react to your inability to speak English fluently as an indication of a refusal to assimilate, as un-American, or simply as a sign that you’re not very bright.

The combination of these experiences might just cause you to stick to others of similar experience who aren’t treating you that way.

But, Asians aren’t more cliquish than other groups. In fact, whites are the most racially exclusive. 40% of whites, according to a recent Reuters commissioned study, don’t have friends of other races. Given the incredibly large number of whites relative to other groups, that’s a big claim. It means that more whites don’t have friends of other races than the total number of people of color in the U.S. excluding Latinos. And this isn’t just indicative of how whites live, it’s also indicative of how whites think. If you don’t believe that, I present all six seasons of Sex and the City, ten more of Friends, and a whole pile of episodes of Girls as evidence.

142 Responses to Why Are Asians So Racist?

Well, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think Asians overall are racist, I truly don’t. But, I do think that from my personal experience and a lot of other blacks in the Los Angeles area, Koreans are probably the most racist and intolerant of black people. I’ve witnessed it at work and away from work.

I have friends that work in China, Japan and South Korea. South Korea is the worst. The friends in South Korea say the ignorance is appalling of how much they don’t know about black people in general, and Africa in particular. Keep in mind, we’re not talking about a third world country here. They idolize and worship whites and generally tend to treat any black or brown person like crap, even darker Southeast Asians. Plastic surgery is CRAZY there in the pursuit of the aquiline Caucasian nose (which is very evident when comparing the singers/actors/models to everyday people walking down the street who can’t afford plastic surgery). My friends tell me that in Korea they believe to be American is to be “white”. WTF? The most diverse country in the world and you think you can’t be American unless you’re white? This is not normal nor intelligent thinking. lol

For an excuse of their racism and intolerance, Koreans here want to yell about the Watts riots. They conveniently omit the incident that many believe led up to the riots (how a Korean shopkeeper shot a 14 year old black girl in the back of the head because she THOUGHT she was stealing a bottle of orange juice and, ONLY got probation and community service!), but love to use it as an excuse. How rude and indignant they are to blacks who come into their stores in predominantly black areas, following them around and speaking harshly to them. I don’t get why blacks patronize these stores, OR why the Koreans move into areas and open a business around people they obviously have contempt for. Ask any black woman in a mostly black area who goes into a beauty supply store for black hair products, who’s behind the counter and is the proprietor …a Korean. If they have so much disgust towards us, why are they still in our communities?

I listen to things my friends tell me and I am speechless at times and, that doesn’t happen very often! Compared to a country like Japan, South Korea is light years behind as far as understanding and getting along with people of color and when they come here, they bring that same BS attitude. The pathetic part is how they imitate our style and dance in hip hop and R&B and yet are racist – what sense does that make? Well, racism itself doesn’t make sense so that was a stupid question. One friend told me that when she gets fed up with Korea, she takes the ferry to Fukuoka, Japan and feels like a human being again. But, as soon as she gets back on the ferry to return to Busan, the points, stares and rude comments begin.

The really funny thing is, I have heard just as many rude, racist, insensitive things said by whites about Asians as are said about us. I don’t play that bull about whites commenting to me about other people of color because if they talk about them, they’ll talk about ME! I don’t understand, I really don’t.

I just had family from the Philippines visit and my younger cousins had the most interesting “idea” of what America was. Let me list the hilarity.

1. They thought they could just go to Justin Bieber’s house and say hello.
2. They think women here as “liberated” meaning that they are allowed to do whatever they want and sleep around with whoever they can.
3. They only like “designer” merchandise. ex iPhones, Ralph Lauren, etc etc.
4. They tend to be more “comfortable” around white people.

Yes, that is who they are. Good thing I moved here when I was little and have been educating myself about the ways of the world and America. I’m glad I have an opportunity to live in a country where diversity is prevalent. I believe this way of thinking to be more ignorant than racist. I believe that the media plays a big role in this. My little nephews and nieces only quote and cite things they see in movies, magazines, and television shows that they have seen in the Philippines.

They clearly live in a differently lifestyle over there and have no idea what to do if they ever migrated here and tried to integrate themselves with modern day America. Keep in mind these are teenagers that are rather quite intelligent in school. Though, their street smarts seem to lacking I can see why most people would say that Asian’s are racist.

you whites are not even considered a third world 2nd world or first world if you want to talk about the caves your people came from, where did you come from to get to America in the first place ? I don’t recollect America nor Canada being a white country also like to add the fact that everything whites have done so far in their history is steal and loot wealth from those so called third world countries not too forget oil resources and raw materials..why didn’t you whites assimilate to native Indians? why are you still on their lands? also why aren’t natives governing their own lands? you aint better than anyone else with your self entitlement that’s why no races can stand white people you are a nuissance and a cheat towards everything you’ve done and your race has done towards humanity. remember that.and you certainly are not the default race to someone else’s land

Jasmine you sound very angry. Dealing with your anger is the first step to tolerance. You come across as being racist. Is this the impression you want people to take away with them? If so you scored a perfect ten.

Jasmine…. White peoples ancestors originated from Africa..We all share the SAME Ancestors……everything you say we ”stole” was learned from OUR ancestors.. Do you know any history outside of America?????? Every society has conquered another society…. that’s how the world works.

Jasmine, “everything whites have done so far in their history is steal and loot wealth from those so called third world countries”

Not technically true. The British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, Dutch, Belgians, Germans and Russians did. Many Europeans like my own ancestors were in fact colonised by other whites.

I’m Irish and we ensured 800 years of British colonisation. They invaded our country, stole our lands, enslaved us, fueled sectarian violence, almost destroyed our language, culture and identity and still haven’t given us back Northern Ireland. In the mid 1800s we had a great potato famine in which millions of people either died or emigrated. The British stole our food and let us rot. Hence why so many Americans, Canadians, Australians and British have Irish ancestry due to emigration. When we arrived in foreign lands we were regarded as sub-human (not white), treated like dogs, discriminated against, and worked the worst jobs.

Ireland was a third world country. It’s obviously not anymore and we take in a lot of immigrants. Lots of young people have emigrated due to a recent recession. We can’t be blamed for colonialism as we ensured a similar fate as others like natives and blacks for centuries. So don’t lump us in with the colonisers because that isn’t fair.

How about all those times blacks have killed and robbed Korean storeowners that don’t make the news? What about the black kids in Philly and New York that specifically target Asians because they see Asians as weaker? I grew up during the ’92 riots and getting into fights with black and Mexican kids just because I was Korean wasn’t fun .. I don’t condone racism but if you think that way and generalize, you’ll see exactly what you wanna see .. it’s ironic because I have blasian friends and they are really proud of their Korean heritage ..

You should be embarrased to know just how many borrowed, cope-out lines you just tried to hide under.
1. Koreans open stores in, largely, in Black lower cclass neighborhoods (ghettos)
2. Ghettos breed the type of crime that gets greater, daily play in the media… over the white collar crimes that ruptured our economy.
3. Therefore, Black perpetrators aren’t targeting Asians. It’s just that Asians take advantage of the lower rents and willingness of Black customers to pay high prices.
4. Asians, rarely ever live in those neighborhoods. They live wherever they find white neighbors.
5. Asian shop owners consider Blacks inferior in every way compared to whites and to Asians. This acccounts for the shoddy, condescending treatment Black customers often get from Asians. Indeed, I have never seen an Asian treat whites the same way.
6. I’m from Philly … lived through more than you ever will.
7. Racism Is not a matter of words, said … not just a matter of getting angry at someone of another race. You are too naive to know. Racism IS all about the blood… the notion that, not only that other person is genetically inferior, but that all such people, yet unborn, deserve your hate and prejudice. All because YOU believe closer to white is closer to God.

1. Okay that is truth. That is what happened in the very early 1990s.
2. Also true.
3. This is where you start to anger me. The ones who were living in those neighborhoods in the 1990s were of Korean descent. Just in case you have not noticed… Koreans were and are STILL not as established as Japanese, Chinese, or even Filipinos living in this country. So no it is NOT taking advantage of low rents, it is because they are poor themselves. And it is not about high prices just to screw people over. If you plan to re-sell imported goods, you will obviously be forced to sell high.

You’re right, they weren’t targeting “Asians, they were targeting internationals or what you folks like to call “foreigners.” It is a FACT that, throughout history, Americans have ALWAYS scrutinize foreigners. You can ask the Jews (until WWII gave a light bulb), the Irish, anyone of Latino descent (of any race), and now today anyone of Middle Eastern descent.

Here is what happened with the LA riots and the case prior (Latasha). Some idiot thought it was okay to shoot a customer. Trials goes and she avoids first degree murder (or whatever the laws are in LA). Then a number of idiots thought it was okay, because of a botched trial, to ransack and destroy Korean-American owned stores JUST because they were Korean. And these people, who are now the new victims, had NOTHING to do with the case. And this movement was thought to “improve” something… Yeah… absolute bullshit. What we see here in this aftermath were xenophobic idiots who attacked the scapegoats rather than the source. Call a spade of spade, an idiot indirectly incited other idiots.

4. It really depends on where in the U.S. they live and the situation that the individual person of Asian descent. Did you know that, even though Asian Americans in general are economic equals to white people, the standard deviation is ridiculous? Yes, there are/were up to three times as many impoverished Asian Americans than White Americans. So the privileged Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino doctors and nurses? Sure. The rest of us? Forget trying to find a white neighborhood.

5. You do not know what the eff you are talking about. South and Southeast Asians (American nationality or not) get that same condescending attitude too! No… EVERYONE, even white people, do (if you’ve been outside the big cities). But guess what I have learned in the past couple of years: It truly is the language and cultural barriers. Seriously. Have you ever considered that maybe because some of these people are fresh off the boat that they’ll be just a little uncomfortable by anyone? It is their tone of voice that bothers you. Well sorry about that, a lot of Americans cannot stand any Asiatic language, or non-perfect English.

6. I love how people think that saying stuff like I’m “(insert race here)” or “I’m from (insert geographical location here)” makes their argument stronger. I don’t care if you’re from Philly.

7. I’m done with you. I will not challenge that there are about half of the Asian American population that acts “white,” but YOU are too naive to know the whole purpose and the discourse for Asian Americans, you know, the “perpetual foreigner” that people are so worried about. Asians who immigrate here follow the system closely. Study well, go to college, and get some connection in order to really take off with a job. But note this: It is all about assimilation AND (key term) internalization. You do not think there is a conflict between keeping their roots versus climbing the social latter? Let me let in on a secret. The whole sucking up to white people? It is a ploy. There, I said it. The game is this: Get on white people’s good side and you’ll have a shot to climb up the social ladder. Do they ACTUALLY support white people? On the contrary. As for me personally? I’d rather die as that stereotypical “weird,” “may be foreign,” Asian “freak” than outright follow the system. I want to beat it, not simply follow it,

Once again, the whole Black versus Asian thing… is exactly what white people want (I know I said this several times, but I feel I need to beat a dead horse here to get my point across). NO ONE thinks of each other as inferior, but rather they see each other as competition… for white people’s “affections.” Here’s the deal why everything is so misunderstood (the treatments of Asians to Blacks and vice versa): We are not communicating and we are just assuming stuff (just like what you are doing Two Dogs).

So much for your anecdotes. The reality is this. These sociological issues are NOT as one-sided as you think, and they are not as simple as you think. It is hilarious that people like you see trees, but miss the entire forest. You are missing the source. You forgot one very important element to racism: Institutionalism and power. Say what you will, but none of us, Black, Asian, Hispanic, have this. We are being played as fools by the higher ups to think that other non-whites do.

I need to clarify for the first sentence in number three. Koreans during that time and the “average” to “below average” (Asian) Joes lived in neighborhoods that were also poor and, the bread and butter of big cities in America, racially segregated.

America is a junior nation that developed too quickly and never experienced the natural process that most other nations go through to get to where they are. That’s why there government plot against everyone and meddle in other nations democratic processes due to incompetence and total intolerance. It pains me to see so many clearly intelligent people squabbling when the facts are there plain to see. The enemy of this planet is The American capitalist racist government not the people no matter what colour or creed. Stop arguing and wake up!

The reason why Asians are so racist is .. they are mostly homogeneous closed off societies, Korea and Japan being 98% and 99% .. there was no Civil Rights movement either.. and you saying there’s less racism in Japan is bullshit, look up Tokyo breakfast and how black men are drawn in anime.. there are anti-foreigner policies because there are no laws against discrimination .. there’s hate groups in Japan that rally in the streets against Zainichi Koreans and foreigners. Politicians are all right wing nationalists in East Asia that pretty much promote blatant racism against each other, they still haven’t gotten over grievances from WW2 that’s how bad it is. There’s not too many black folks in Asia so of course there’s going to be ignorance too. Koreans are assholes, they stare at what’s different and are blunt .. whereas Japanese are polite and inscrutable .. tell your friends to move to Japan if they think it’s so much better, trust me it isn’t .. they consider all foreigners temporary.

Back to Amurica and how it’s so post racial here .. how dafuq am I suppose to to be responsible for all Koreans? Are you responsible for all blacks and their social problems? Wigs, liquor stores, Korean owned shops can all be boycotted, let’s see who would open up shops in their place. Times are changing too, blacks aren’t the majority in SCLA anymore.. Latinos are, and they have their own businesses. Obviously YOU hate Koreans so maybe it’s a reflection of your racism ..

Oh no, the “Korea is a homogeneous society” excuse again. Sigh… Who said you were responsible for ALL Koreans? Surely you don’t think this one black woman’s opinion is important!! But, hey, decent law abiding blacks are stereotyped for the behavior of blacks who are criminals, drug addicts, etc. Seems LOTS of people believe the white media. lol

I agree that blacks should boycott Korean businesses that treat them like shit – 100% agree! Why they don’t is due to their own ignorance and unwillingness to go a few hundred yards to another business. Blacks are not blameless in this to allow someone to dog them and still give them their money.

Blacks aren’t the majority in SCLA and whites aren’t the majority in LA County anymore, so your point? No, I don’t care for Koreans just as they don’t care for me. I’ll still take Japan any day and I know there are racists there that don’t care for foreigners/blacks. They are just more civilized in how they treat you and that’s all I care about.

So, someone else has looed into the history of racism in
Asian societies? Wow. I thought I was the only one. Yet I could tell you some illuminating things … really. I regret what I’ve learned, because I sought a much better experience than what I encountered.
people seem to be aware that racism against Blacks, although not the lynching kind that whites are famous for, is even more widely shared in Asian culture.

73% of Asian people elect Obama only 39% of white .Asian hate black people is just bullshit from racist white.Other racist myth is Obama election result is come from white guilt.Which is also not true .The white is the only race that hate Obama .Just 39% of the white pick him.

Is the white people who compare black and Asian like rat cockroach or monkey .Is the white people who enslave black genocite red Indian in America genocite Brown people in Australia.Asian insult black is come from racist white .In Asia there are no any kind of racist organization that kill black people like KKK or Neo Nazi.All thing about Asia hate black is just self claiming white bullshit.Statistic prove other way.

Asians are not white-crazy? Answer this. Why, in any city you care to visit, will you see Asians tagging whites on any day of the week. Yet, you will grow a beard before you see an Asian even having a social conversation with a Black man, woman or child. Rarely do Asians spend time with Blacks. They seek out white associations, daily. Go look for yourself.

“I have friends that work in China, Japan and South Korea. South Korea is the worst. The friends in South Korea say the ignorance is appalling of how much they don’t know about black people in general, and Africa in particular. Keep in mind, we’re not talking about a third world country here. They idolize and worship whites and generally tend to treat any black or brown person like crap, even darker Southeast Asians. Plastic surgery is CRAZY there in the pursuit of the aquiline Caucasian nose (which is very evident when comparing the singers/actors/models to everyday people walking down the street who can’t afford plastic surgery). My friends tell me that in Korea they believe to be American is to be “white”. WTF? The most diverse country in the world and you think you can’t be American unless you’re white? This is not normal nor intelligent thinking. lol”

I am not going to defend the part of native South Koreans not knowing black people well (that part needs to change). You have been fooled by what it means to be “white.” They are not talking about pure race and ethnicity, but skin color and beauty standards. “White” skin to them goes along with their belief of having that “glow.” To go along with the beauty standards are the plastic surgeries. There pursuit is the stay thin (therefore liposuction) and the double eyelids. But they do not do this to be necessarily “white” as in “Caucasian,” but white as in “pure.” It is not the women’s fault there that they HAVE to look beautiful thanks to how their media and society works.

You’re friends must be experiencing just one side. Of all the people I talked, the white worshipping (we’re talking about pure race now) is pretty mixed. Some are disgusted at the thought of racial whiteness in a multitude of ways, but yes I do acknowledge some Koreans do “love” white people that much. I have a feeling that you are just trying to get as much dirt as possible on Koreans, out of spite, no offense.

“For an excuse of their racism and intolerance, Koreans here want to yell about the Watts riots. They conveniently omit the incident that many believe led up to the riots (how a Korean shopkeeper shot a 14 year old black girl in the back of the head because she THOUGHT she was stealing a bottle of orange juice and, ONLY got probation and community service!), but love to use it as an excuse. How rude and indignant they are to blacks who come into their stores in predominantly black areas, following them around and speaking harshly to them. I don’t get why blacks patronize these stores, OR why the Koreans move into areas and open a business around people they obviously have contempt for. Ask any black woman in a mostly black area who goes into a beauty supply store for black hair products, who’s behind the counter and is the proprietor …a Korean. If they have so much disgust towards us, why are they still in our communities?”

Read my comment (if you are still there) below. It looks like you are “offended” about Koreans being in a “Black” area. Xenophobic much? You do not have the right to dictate where people want to live or do business in. The Watts riots are not excusing the shopkeeper, but the AFTERMATH. Let me ask you this, do you think that the looting and destruction of the Korean-American owned stores were justified? If you do, I am sorry, but you are as dirty as the shopkeeper. You are not seeing it all the way. What did the OTHER Korean-American owned stores have to do with the shopkeeper and the botched trial? Also, Korean Americans were more hurt by the asshole LAPD not being there to at least settle it down. Those people who took part in the riots and targeted Korean-Americans… as Koreans. Or no, I should say “foreigners.”

The so called speaking “harshly” and following them around is all just miscommunication and internalization (from both sides). Here’s my defense of Korean-Americans: their tone of voice. Do you speak another language? If you do, it is not exactly an easy thing, is it? And when we get to transitioning between English and an Asiatic language, there is more to it than just translating and localizing. There is tone, intonation. I’ll bet you were annoyed by just simply hearing, say, a 1st generation Korean American talking. Well put everything together and we get this: miscommunication. It is called empathy people. Oh I am sorry, this is America… where we are only supposed to care about ourselves and do not even care to try to understand others. And there we see the problem.

Brazil is more diverse than USA..
Yet, most of people (not only koreans/chinese) tend to think brazilians are all black/brown (which brown in Brazil is black with white, not white with native american like considered in USA).

What you’ve touched on here is “mental colonization”. While European colonialism in Asia ended a century ago Western cultural hegemony continues today. Most people in Asia, because they haven’t had the benefit of living in the West where they can experience racial discrimination, have little self-awareness about race. They are unaware of how they are perceived by Americans, Europeans, and the rest of the world. They cannot see that they over-value whites and devalue everyone else (themselves included). It is pathetic and tragic and I blame it on poverty and a lack of education. Too many people in Asia live in poverty; it’s all they can do to study hard as students, apply to American universities, try get a job in science/engineering, and pray they can achieve a middle-class lifestyle. In college they do not take courses on racism, segregation, colonization, Audre Lorde, the politics of skin color/race/gender/sexual orientation/etc. This kind of education is distinctly Western. So, Asians continue to lead these socially blind lives, putting white Europeans on a pedestal, dismissing every other race including themselves as inferior to whites to a large extent, and spend small fortunes on plastic surgery to make themselves look as white as possible. I am Chinese American and my family immigrated to the U.S. when I was 7, so I’ve had the benefit of watching how these two cultures function. Everyday I see this racial self-hatred in my own family–one aunt has had plastic surgery about 10 times to try to make the bridge of her nose higher to look like Europeans, puts heavy eye makeup to hide her Asian eyes (like Asian female newscasters in the U.S.–check out Connie Chung, etc.), and generally avoids Asian people. My aunt treats my half-white cousins far better than she treats me. This is the legacy of 19th century European colonization and 20th century American imperialism. It makes me happy to watch China become a world power, become richer, and even watch Japan re-build its military to match China. It makes me happy to watch Nigerian and Mexican business people become billionaires. The balance of power in the world is shifting. Nobody is at the mercy of the West anymore. And maybe my aunt will one day stop hating herself for being Chinese.

It’s not racial. It’s in our dna. Not against blacks or any one race in general. Koreans originated from China. The moment we formed, we were ostracized. The Chink bastards (lol) chased us to where we now reside. We hate everyone. Koreans only like Koreans. We don’t like others because of our first experience with “outsiders” was a, well, not a good one. Anyway, Korean men realized that the most beautiful and luscious vagina was between Korean women’s legs. That’s all we need. That’s all any man needs. Lol. Korean women have the prettiest faces in the world. And bodies to equal the awesome faces. We Korean men are lucky. All others fail. They fail miserably.

The majority of East Asian countries place high value on class and politeness. Most Buddhist East Asian countries are fairly easygoing for foreigners because these are pretty much unbreakable social norms. Indians too, especially those from the south like Sri Lanka, have politeness drilled into them like it was their mother tongue, but they’re still racist as fuck on the inside.

The biggest exception to the trend is South Korea, which mainly adopted Christianity (hence by emphasis on Buddhism), but even it has a huge “respect” culture thanks to Confucius. I presume the conflicts with North Korea and Japan isolated the country from foreigners, aided by the relative purity of the Korean ethnicity.

You can see it when they bow for you, or chase after you when you mistakenly leave a tip. A lot of Asian languages have a polite modifiers to words to use in formal situations.

You guys are forgetting that most of the earth is still racist. Pretty much everywhere east-of-Austria until you hit Australia is a racist shithole. And racism in East Asian countries is nowhere near as bad as racism in Muslim/Middle Eastern countries. Places like Nigeria and Pakistan are probably some of the worst regressive countries to live in for racism.

I lived in Appalachia and there are four things you ought to know about the white people of the region: 1) they are no more or less racially prejudiced than white people generally, 2) they don’t like outsiders using slurs to describe them like “hillbillies,” 3) they have participated in or idly stood by while some of the most racist acts in history have been committed in their region – acts like Indian removal (there are few Indians in them hills for a reason), white race riots, slavery, Jim Crow, et., and 4) they are the overwhelming majority through most of the region and therefore dominate it, so yes, while they may not be individually any more powerful than any other ordinary people, they collectively can drive a lot of extremely racist public policy and are doing so because white identity turns on the idea of supremacy. This one fact of life in the U.S. drives all of these dynamics – whiteness was invented in order for ordinary people to commit extraordinary acts of injustice against those deemed not white and feel okay about it at the end of the day. The more strongly people identify as “white,” the more likely they are to exercise white power.

Just saying, the term is Native American. The term “American Indian” is to a certain extent offensive. Europeans came to American to search for India, they didn’t meet actual Indians but Native Americans. A assumption was developed, that because Native Americans and Indians share similar skin tones they must be of the same race. So technically “American Indian” is a ethnic slur.

Thanks for that correction, Lina. I appreciate it. I fall on that term some times because so many use the term within the community – for instance, Indian Country News. But, good point, no excuses. Thanks.

Hi Scot , I always read your articles , but never commented before. I’m from Latin America, from a country called “Uruguay”, it’s from the native american “Guaraní” ant it means “river of the painted birds”. So, what happen in my country as others latin american countries is discrimination against “minorieties” , mostly “blacks” and native people, such as mapuches in Chile. Even if those groups are not minorieties, like in Brazil , they will be treated in that way. Because of eurocentrism (that cancer) a lot of people want to be european or related with european heritage. In my country there is a wrong notion that everyone in here is descendant of europeans immigrants that landed here escaping from the wars and the misery. And people says “We came from the boats” , without even know what they’re talking about. There was already people here, when these immigrants came. People as my ancestors that were forced to be here, or my others ancestors that were here first (natives). So, it’s funny because, my mom, for example, here is considered as “white” or with european heritage, but in fact she is mixed just like everyone else on latin america. In the USA she will be probably a latina or even “arabic” bc of the arabics feautures of spanish (from Spain) heritage. Here we don’t have guettos, luckily. “black” people is considered black, (also by themselves) but we are mixed like everyone else. But as racism needs to be alive for the maintaining of the pyramid, we tend to clasifique people, and our owns fellow citizen, that’s the sad thing. on Uruguay people don’t recognize the native heritage from “guaranies” or “guaraní”people, despite the name of the country , despite we use many words in guaraní such as “gurí” that means “kid” we drink every day a drink called “mate”, (maybe someone know it bc it was wrongly publicized on Japan by Coca Cola as a refreshing “latin” drink when in fact is an ancient beverage from natives) , despite the blood heritage! . No, here people thinks they are mostly “whites europeans” and then, it’s us, the “blacks”, that 10% of the population no one cares about, except on Carnaval and others items as sports or music , so we , “black people” have a very strong culture or “sub culture” based on african heritage and the past of slavery,(we have a “thing” called Candombe, and it was considered “intangible heritage of humanity” by UNESCO, it’s the most popular sound representing Uruguay) it’s a pride but it’s a form to keep us down too. But black people here is not “racist” , we are not closed, we are all mixed socially and on blood of course. Even like that, we have not the sames privilages as the ones who claims european heritage as something superior. Here a person who comes from Bolivia to work is “strange” or even “inferior”, but a person who comes from Spain or Italy, or Germany is admired , these is so pathetic and it’s embarrassed. It happens in every single country, racism in Bolivia against the ones doesn’t have “enough” european heritage is a every day thing. It’s institutionalized. As in Mexico, Argentina, Perú,etc. Oh well, I just wanted to show asian people who read you, the problems of racism in latin america, also we are not “latins”, italians are latins, spaniards are “latins”, portuguese are latins, we are Americans, because América is a continent. Here people from Paraguay who drinks “mate”, in Uruguay we drink a lot of it, but with subtle differences, also in Argentina, Brazil, some parts of Chile, and probably in a few others countries as well. Oh, it’s a hot and tastes bitter drink ! you can drink it cold or with sugar, but not in Uruguay, we drink it with boiling water.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Lz5kFVcT4 And these is an example of “llamadas”(calls) in Uruguay, african heritage dances and more, it’s “calls” bc of the way slaves call with each others through drums. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaKlfKWykYs Also, on 2012 a chinese girl joined to a group of ” african dance” candombe in Montevideo, but I don’t remember her name ! bye keep writing ! kisses !

No no, racism transcends MORE than just genes or the Black/White dichotomy. Your definition of the root ONLY came up during the colonial period. There has been SO MUCH more that created racism over time.

There is a lack of clarity in this forum because most people don’t use definitions in a way that effectively counters the dominant “system” of racism/white supremacy. In the “system,” which is a criminal gang syndicate, there are only two groups, one labeled “white” and another labeled “black”–(non-white means shades of black, mud people and so on.) Within the “white” group, there are a minority of people who are not racists, but they have proven themselves ineffective against those who are.

In this “system,” folks labeled “non-whites,” have no effective Power to oppress “whites” or ultimately, take care of or defend themselves–they are subject people, and, therefore, cannot be “racist.” The inmates of a prison may have petty squabbles amongst themselves, but the warden and his prison guards ultimately control the prison. The confused “non-white” people on the “black” side of chess board are manipulated to fight each, which is why they are effectively dominated by “whites” in all major areas of people activity across this globe…with ease. This is why subjects of oppressors tend to suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. “Non-whites” collectively still don’t get that the very moment the game of “white” supremacy is played, they lose because it’s a concept of reality that always makes “whites” superior to Others.

“If you do not understand white supremacy–which is racism–what it is, and how it works, everything else you understand will only confuse you.” –Neely Fuller Jr. (The United Independent Compensatory Code System Concept)

To effectively eliminate the evil practice of racism, victims, subjects and servants need a counter code. Counter-racism science teaches students how to understand and use Words, definitions, Symbols and strategies in a constructive manner that helps unravel the “system” racism/white supremacy. Studying and practicing counter-racist logic also serves to improve one’s Will and Ability in Right thought, speech and action, which in turn dissipates falsehood. “White” supremacy and a lot of other ills can’t exist without falsehood, distress, depression and confusion.

Olympic Blame and Victim Games miss the point and are really a distraction from the elephant in the room that must be dealt with eventually by everyone with a looming physical mortality. The gritty challenge in using a constructive code of thought, speech and behavior is that doing so will put a Right-thinking person in direct conflict with the inner “SELF/EGO.” For pilgrims who want to walk-the-walk, self-awareness, self-knowledge, self-control and self-mastery appear to be the only path to replace the unjust “system” with a system of justice that guarantees no one is mistreated. This is an internal journey where there are no “bogeymen” to project our fears and excuses on. That said, our brothers who think they need “white” identity to survive, cannot be who they are, unless “we” are who we are. When we transform ourselves by changing our consciousness, the plague of racism will dissolve proportionally to our efforts.

Many people interested in expert counter-racism strategies and suggestions, have found Neely Fuller’s book to be highly constructive–//producejustice.com.

Sir… it’s a cliche: All people are, etc. Never surrender your intellect to a cliche. To begin, you’d be hard pressed to find anything 100%.
What YOU call “prejudice” can also be conditioning. Pavlov’s experiments demonstrrated that decades ago with dogs. Statistically, Blacks have no Asian friends. It’s not because Blacks consider Asian people inferior. It’s the other way around.

PS: NO, I do not hate or dislike Asians. I just can’t live life ignoring overwhelming EXPERIENCE

this comment is for Lina . when you mentioned Europeans were looking for india they came to America and seen aboriginal Indians I just wanted to clarify that india does have aboriginals as well I hope you are aware of that. india has over 500 native aboriginal tribes such as adavasi and dalits.. the country india doesn’t just have hindu and Sikh Indians it has mixed native hindu aboriginals as well and the amount of linguistics in that country are allot. a few to name is gujurat,hindustani,punjabi,urdu etc.

I agree with the general points made here; however, I want to also emphasize the truth of what Tricia has written. Asian immigrants are not “taught” to be racist when they arrive in this country–they instead bring their racism and ignorance with them.

Tricia uses South Korea as an example, but in China there is a word for black people which translates as “black monster.” Is there a “white monster” equivalent? Of course not. And in Japan, “B-style” is a form of dress and behavior that proves a caricature of certain Black Americans and their lifestyle. Because of course, a Japanese person would know the one way to be Black!

To me, these examples imply that Asians are very much a part of the negative cultural forces felt by Blacks in this country and those abroad. Blacks are seen as the “Other,” but there is something beyond that, something almost sinister about how they are treated in Asia. In this day and age, I find it very discomforting that a Black family in Beijing should have their pictures taken, their hair pulled, and generally treated like monkeys in a zoo:(http://intelligenttravel.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/18/being-black-in-china/). Of course this makes sense when I remember that a Chinese friend told me he wanted to go to Africa, “to see lions.” I guess Africans would just blend in with the background, naked and climbing trees.

Of course, the link above is not an example of racism per se, but it does provide a lens through which we can observe Asian conceptualizations about race, and specifically their characterization of Blacks as beyond “Other.” White people can be ” laowai ” but Blacks are simply “black people” or better yet, “black monsters.” What worries me is that Asian countries, especially China, are becoming a more dominant force in our global economy and because they do not respect those who are not White, what will this mean for the people they come in contact with? Can Chinese businesses respect the “black monsters” when they build business in Nairobi or trade goods with those in Eritrea? If not, how will Africans suffer because of this–how might they prevent this second phase of imperialism?

I respect the aim of this blog, but in creating a “strategy…for racial justice”, I believe it behooves the author to honestly address the extent to which racism exists within his community–and how that racism affects other individuals and groups. The last paragraph of the author’s post seems to imply “Well, Whites are worst! Look at this and this and THAT!” But the first question of this post implies that this isn’t about White people.

Most people (especially those who would read this blog) are aware of White cultural imperialism; however, why *are* Asians so racist toward black people?

Thanks, Lilian. I appreciate the comment though I disagree somewhat, obviously. I think there’s a combination of things going on here. Yes, I think there is racism toward many kinds of people among Asians in Asia, not least of all inter-ethnic conflict between Asian nations and peoples. And Asians in Asia often harbor a demeaning brand of curiosity about people of other races. For instance, the first white Americans in Asia were regarded as freaks. My own grandmother, an immigrant from Japan, referred to blue eyes as “dead fish eyes.” I, meanwhile, found blond hair so fascinating (in a town where there were practically no white people) that I made friends with her so I could touch her hair.

That kind of fascination can play itself out in some horrible ways. When one of the earliest Asian women was brought to the U.S., she was such a novelty to people here that they caged her like a circus animal and took her from town to town in what amounted to a freak show. The novelty people find in those they deem “other” is objectifying and certainly something we should struggle to rise above. But it’s a pretty common thing worldwide. Culture seems to function in ways that make this kind of ethnocentrism common across the human experience, don’t you think?

It seems to me that culture is the ultimate confirmation bias creating bubble. It cloaks us and comforts us. When things that are exotic within the context of our culture are introduced, the tendency is to look with awe, fear, or fascination. Fear can quickly turn to anger, fascination to objectification, and awe to phenomena like cargo cults and whatnot. But, when that reaction to difference is politicized, that’s when it goes from rude to dangerous and even deadly. And that, as you know as well or better than me, is what we’ve done with race in the U.S., and in a very particular way that has made racism extraordinarily durable and effective as a way of organizing our economy, domestic politics, and foreign policy.

When imagery that reflects that politicized brand of racism is introduced to other people through American popular media, now accessible the world over and even dominant in some markets, what might more rightly be described as ethnocentrism or even xenophobia (fear of what is foreign) can take on a more sinister character. And then, when, as Soya pointed out, the U.S. military, missionaries, corporate operatives and others are added to the mix, each with their own agendas to “Americanize,” proselytize, or simply to colonize, things only get worse. And, it often appears to exaggerate because, importantly, folks are being taught about people they have often have no direct contact with.

My own family experience is telling here, I think. My family lives in Hawaii. That’s where they were born and where their parents were born or immigrated and where some have always been. I have frequently encountered racism, especially towards black people, among my family members. Over time, that racism has been defused and softened by friendships with black people, usually through work, and by now I’m guessing they’re pretty embarrassed about the negative ideas they once harbored and shared about black people. In fact, through that experience of change over time, I think they adjusted their attitudes about race in general, and have become much more sensitive about issues of race all around.

But, the attitude was there to begin with because of a combination of at least two things. First, in the process of assimilation, they internalized a lot of negative stuff about black people from school, their white racist bosses, and media. As Toni Morrison once argued, the immigrant to the U.S. is not fully American until she has learned and exercised racism against black people, and certainly, for my parents generation, anti-black racism probably looked like part of what it meant to be an American as they were coming of age in the 40s and 50s, especially in Hawai’i where, at that time, there were few if any black people to force people to look beyond stereotypes. Additionally, there was World War II which made them targets. Many among my relatives had to change their names during this period from Junichi to Junior, or Osamu to Sam. Playing the role of cooperative super-Americans was a means of staying out of internment camps.

The second thing that fostered racism in them was the U.S. military. Through the military, they made their first contacts with black people in Korean War era through Vietnam. Black young men, usually single, barracked in cramped dorms, forced to endure basic training, working in the most stressful conditions imaginable while earning just above poverty pay, and almost completely without the company of anyone but other young men in a racist military that simultaneously treated them with disrespect because of their race while training them to see Asians as “the other.” And the context in which they made contact was military pay day, an occasion on which young enlisted men were released into freedom with money in their pockets in a town full of Korean hostess bars, adult bookstores, prostitution, drug trafficking, and bars, lots of bars with lots of drinking going on in them. Among soldiers, drunk often meant rude toward people who looked to a lot of those soldiers like the “enemy.”

So, along with distrusting whites who were also among those soldiers and who had dominated and mistreated people of color in the colony they controlled, they learned to be suspicious of black people.

This distorted view of only one slice of the complex lives of people belonging to what is, regardless of race, a problematic demographic by gender and age, confirmed many of the racist things they had already learned by watching TV news, being exposed to U.S. military propaganda, working for bosses in their childhoods who were the top tier of a racial caste system that once included black people…all of that mixed to make for some pretty messed up ideas about race. And that experience of layers of racist propaganda, exposure to the military, and simple ignorance of people like my parents is something like what some people probably experience near military bases in places like South Korea.

So, I think people are taught racism. But, you’re right, they aren’t always taught racism in the U.S. Of course, in the U.S., when we’re taught racism, we’re also taught the rules of racial civility – the code of p.c. So, in the U.S., educated people are taught that if you went on a trip to Dakar, you didn’t visit all of “Africa.” But the fact that they know the difference doesn’t, I don’t think, make them less likely to be racist. They’re just more sophisticated when it comes to working within rules of civility that, incidentally or be design, tend to keep racial inequity and injustice in place. In most cases, I would go so far as to say that they take comfort in knowing things like that Africa isn’t a town or a country because reducing racism to acts of ignorance like that has the effect of trivializing the deadly system of privilege and oppression involving cops, guns, prisons, poverty, and people like George Zimmerman that supports that kind of ignorance.

But the example of people in Beijing you described? There’s no filter of civility in place there. The context and politics of China doesn’t require it. They’re just filter-free when it comes to playing out a curiosity or fear I’m going to guess a lot of non-black people have about black people in America, too.

Yes there is a word for white “monster.” It’s better translated as “ghost.” They say Yang Gui. Just like Hei Gui. In Cantonese it’s Gweilo (Google is your friend) You’re welcome for the education.

BTW, in general they refer to all foreigners as “Gui Zi,” including the ABCs who can’t understand Chinese who roam around China sulking at having to visit the “motherland.” I am often referred as Gui Zi both endearingly and with some light condescension.

And, oh, slightly chubby people are “Pang Zi.” A person slightly older is “Lao (Insert Surname).” I’m not saying Chinese people can’t be racist towards black people (they can), but I tend to agree it’s the accumulation of negative Western stereotypes, rather than some type of power-oppression dynamic. Unfortunately it seems that as China modernizes and Westernizes the level of casual bigotry towards black folks have risen.

“Unfortunately it seems that as China modernizes and Westernizes the level of casual bigotry towards black folks have risen.”

Which does not make any sense (assuming this statement as true). They of all people should know the system and how it affects all minorities, yet it is as if they embrace it (which is kind of ironic actually).

Probably kind of random and years too late, but I’ve always had a problem with the “ghost“ translation. I mean, if the point of translation is to help convey meaning then “ghost” is definitely not the word to use. Imagine if someone called you a “ghost” by way of insult. You’d just laugh at them. Monster, demon or devil are much better in my opinion. I think devil is the best term. I know that Gui has multiple meanings, one of which is ghost, but I think that when you translate it you have to use one of the stronger and more negative words, otherwise the meaning gets lost.

As to Chinese racism. Personally I think it needs to be taken more seriously than it sometimes is because it feeds into global forms of racism. There’s no way it can be dismissed, as it so often is, as simple classism or xenophobia. The iconography and terminology of racism used against, say, blacks, is often so similar to that used in America that they’re almost indistinguishable (with some important local differences, of course). While I’m always careful not to try and shoehorn other cultures and viewpoints into a Euro-American framework, I feel like the phenomenon of racialised prejudice in China – especially the kind directed towards blacks- is so strongly influenced by it that it can still be usefully analysed using many of the concepts applied to a Euro-American context.

Asians do not bring racism into America. they interact according to how they are treated. go to you tube and type ‘racist in Vancouver/ a fight with a Asian guy’ there’s your proof whites are the problem.

I really appreciate the honestly of these comments. And I think it’s critical to address anti-black racism in all of our communities. Also, I think it’s important to be specific, because each culture has a specific history, and race is a historical force that has shaped current-day power relations. In citing Korea, Japan, and China, we should remember first that they are very different nations with complicated and often brutal political histories among themselves. And then that the history of race is a history of empire, meaning that one would have to trace back to the origins of western ideas of blackness in various parts of Asia. How and when were they introduced? In many cases it was earlier than the arrival of Asian immigrants in America, particularly post-’65 waves of immigrants. For example, there were Black GIs who served in the Korea War and who have been stationed in Korea, in what is today the largest permanent deployment of U.S. troops in the world. Certainly Koreans would have absorbed ideas of blackness from witnessing the differential treatment of those Black GIs within the U.S. military. And then there is the history of coolies, who came from various parts but came later to be most commonly known as Chinese indentured laborers, many who labored alongside African slaves in the 18th Century U.S. South, Latin America, and Caribbean. There were examples of solidarity as well as not, but given that these were not the elites of their countries of origin, their associations with slave labor could have facilitated perjorative, classed ideas of blackness in their home countries. Certainly if you look at many of the Asian countries where the U.S. has chosen to invest economically and to intervene politically, like South Korea, for example, the idea that closer to white means good, and closer to black means bad has taken hold, and I would say that’s the result of white supremacy in the form of American global capital expansion and influence. There are scholars who could speak more authoritatively on this, but I wanted to offer my two cents that it’s difficult to pull apart today’s ideas of blackness in these cultures from the long histories of western colonization. And then, regardless of where they come from, they are only part of the story. There has always also been resistance. We just need more of it. Much, much more.

It seems to me that people are trying to understand Asian racism by forcing it through the “black/white” racial frame and that just doesn’t make any sense. It could easily be argued that under NE Asian racism – let’s be specific, that is what people are talking about – it is other Asian groups (SE, South, Asians) who experience the worst of it. The fact that the focus is always drawn to the black experience shows how limited is the scope or desire to understand the issue – and may hint at the degree to which people in the west seem conditioned to see little commonality with Asian people.

Asian racism – just like any other discussion of Asian subjects – is often mired in layers of stereotypes (about Asians), over-simplification (Asia? India? Afghanistan?), geo-political considerations (Asians are untrustworthy friends, and fiendish enemies), and economic competition (we hate their economic success). American culture seems geared towards defamation of Asian cultures and people – most images of Asians are derogatory, and casually racist and demeaning behaviours towards Asian people are normalized by the media, the film and television industry, and many of the celebs who work within it.

The question is; since American culture is so geared towards defaming, mocking, and misrepresenting Asians, why would I not expect the discussion of Asian racism to bear the characteristics of this culture of one-sided misrepresentation and defamation?

It seems to be popular to discuss racism in countries like China and Japan, and to turn our noses up at how “backward” these people are in their racial attitudes. But there is almost always an implicit acquiescence to the culture of over-simplified, one-sided, misrepresentation that is one of the hallmarks of anti-Asian racism in this approach.

Someone linked to a NatGeo report that outlined the experience of black tourists to China – they were the object of much interest about their racial characteristics, and that commenter framed the article (for inflammatory effect, perhaps) as though the black tourists were being treated like “monkeys”. I’m not so sure. To me it sounds like they were being treated like celebrities. Annoying? Sure – even the most famous celebs grow tired of all the public attention. Racist? Well, let’s see.

First of all, I would doubt that NatGeo would (or could) present a similar report on “Being Black In America” – routine police harassment, incomprehensibly high rates of incarceration, disturbingly high illiteracy rates, discrimination in jobs and housing, and perennially lower income levels, not to mention police brutality and the deaths of dozens of blacks in police custody annually, would make such a report too damning. This is not a “whites do it too!” argument, it is simply an attempt to put accusations of “Asian” racism into perspective. As far as I know, Africans and african-Americans in Asia are not routinely harassed by police, or unequally incarcerated, or die in police custody – at least not to the degree that we know occurs in the US, and even in western Europe. At the very most, all we could say is that there is ignorance and (almost comical) racial insensitivity in the kind of experiences of the tourists in the Natgeo report.

In fact, as a new player in Africa, and one that is under constant scrutiny – often xenophobic in nature – it is in China’s interest to present or fashion positive racial attitudes towards Africans. If we look past the tired narratives about Asian racism, China has become a land of opportunity for many Africans, and a significant destination for higher education for African students. This might be one of the reasons that some in the west are so “protective” of blacks in China but less so of blacks living in their own couıntries – opportunities for education and economic development offered by Chinese and other Asian involvement means that Africa now has an opportunity to break free of Western meddling and assume more autonomy.

What better way to derail this process than to exaggerate Asian racism – if we are honest can we really say that pointing a camera at someone and staring are in the same league as police brutality, inter-generational poverty caused by discrimination, and discriminatory sentencing leading to higher incarceration rates? The paradox is that these kinds pf exaggerated reports of Asian racism, speak more about western racism towards Asians than it does about Asiatic racism towards blacks. If this wasn’t the case, then why are there never any reports on the descended-from-slaves black minority in India whose lives are a testament to profound racist discrimination and political marginalization? My guess is that there is little xenophobia about being overrun by powerful South Asian economies, or historical demonizing of Indians as enemies, hence no requirement for defamation.

Of course, none of this speaks to the state of black/Asian relations in the US. This is another area where the subject is mired in racist stereotypes about Asians. All I will say about this is that the narrative on Asian/black tension almost always focuses on the Asian side of the equation – that is, I am told that all of the racial antagonism that exists between the two groups in the US derive from the racist attitudes of Asians. But in order for this to be true one would have to believe that African-Americans are a “blank slate” in terms of racial attitudes and that they are immune to America’s pervasive culture of demeaning and defaming Asian people and their cultures. I find this hard to believe, and I think that if we truly wanted to have an honest discussion on Asian/black relations we wouldn’t ignore this hugely significant part of the equation.

im not so sure about the lack of attention to india’s racism. there are many indian scholars who have brought this to attention. and in recent months you cant move for articles about the backwardness or rape-readiness of indian men (i would say the last ten years have been, even in spite of indias rise as a financial power, quite poor in terms of PR for south asian men in general). but yes, i think there is more fear around china at the moment as it is the biggest ‘threat’ to the west’s economies which is why there is more negative attention on racism in china, but honestly, as a british born indian man, the representations of east and south asian people in tv, films, and the media in general are not the same, but pretty similar. its no coincidence that a film like harold and kumar had main characters from both groups. the similarities between the two, and how they are viewed by the wider populations have massive overlap.

That’s exactly right – but I will say that racism in both S.Korea and Japan (our allies apparently) is also highlighted, often exaggerated, and framed as definitive of the “Asian” character.

Racism in India definitely is acknowledged (albeit quietly), but it doesn’t seem get used as a way to justify racism against Indians by the mainstream media, in the same way that exaggerated reports of East Asian racism seems to be.

Besides, I would suggest that it is SE and South Asians who experience racism in NE Asia perhaps equal to, or more than, blacks – but this narrative doesn’t fly in America, possibly because Asians are so demonized in the culture. Who can empathize or sympathize with a people whom your culture casually mocks and demeans?

But even this narrative leaves out the fact that Chinese migrants all over Asia, are themselves often the targets of racism.

“That’s exactly right – but I will say that racism in both S.Korea and Japan (our allies apparently) is also highlighted, often exaggerated, and framed as definitive of the “Asian” character.”

It gets very tricky trying to scale how racist so and so are. I’ll kind of agree and disagree with your statement here. On one hand, I think that East Asians have other prejudices and attitudes that are not always linked to pure race. For example, maybe they do not see Black people as “black” like we do here in America, but rather “dark.” And dare I say maybe they do not see people and institutions in the form of racial communities (again like here in America), but as nationalities. For example, when native Japanese folks think “gaijin,” they automatically think about White and Black people. All I could say is “Hello! Asian Americans are technically in the same boat.” I think it also just does not help that, let us use Japan as an example again, that there is quite a split in attitude on basically everything, and people in Japan prefer not to address race (unless they are the liberal arts folks or stout left-wingers, I could be wrong here).

“Besides, I would suggest that it is SE and South Asians who experience racism in NE Asia perhaps equal to, or more than, blacks – but this narrative doesn’t fly in America.”

This is the one topic that is often overlooked. It is debatable where Central/SE/S Asians truly land on the East Asian hierarchy. Someone else on this topic basically brought it up:

There are a few other possible reasons why it does not apply in America/the West. 1. The whole Asians are the same BS that spreads around. 2. Assimilation by East Asians in general (the whole white-washing or sucking up/selling out to white people). Now of course SE Asians do that shit too, but it is a split against East Asians rather than a conjoined effort. 3. Depending on where you live, Asians seem to band together, therefore there “must not” be any problems.

Apparently your academic scholastic knowledge IS invaluable.Require me to use spell check.My particular of knowledge fall into the mechanical field.Being Black and from the united states.Born 1950 in New Jersey.Being a part of history of the first black family.Able to live the American dream image.New home,car,furniture,TV,Radio, party line telephone,American Band Stand Dick Clark,home doctors.But my parents expressed one important value.Understanding the world around me.Understanding the simple things.Where your food came from,why the signal came into the antenna to show the TV picture.These basic awareness are the strongest knowledge a man can achieve.The first day of school I was deny to use the rest room.Can you imagine.A 4 year old child starting his academic life in this position.There’s a lot of details of my life.Far as to racism in my life.Believe me I could continue describing on so many level and different directions.USMC,Bethlehem Steel,machinist training,Military Police.And now living the Philippines.Racism is a part of modern culture.No matter who you are.WHEN WE start comparing issues.Its never a end to man’s conclusion.We must separate our focus.A respect people for their values.It doesn’t matter what their cultures are.Realizing the world is one place we live.We all are injected into this world based on location of birth.Japaneses born West Virginia whites born in Harlem,blacks born London.It doesn’t matter where or what color our skin is.What about Albinism what are they.The origin of man tell the total complete story of man.Whether it’s true or not and we can except the true.Is what man is affected of. Please research Gouldtown New Jersey,Philippine and American War,Andrews Carnegie.The seed is planted in modern man.Thank You

To say that 40% of whites have no friends of any other race and conclude they are more racist than any other group does not make any sense. There are considerably more whites than any other ethnic group and so they are more likely to have white friends by pure chance. There are entire states where the population is almost completely white- meaning they couldn’t find a person of another race even if they tried. White Americans are the least racist people on earth- they have been taught from a young age that to be racist is to be evil. Which is true I guess. To make myself more clear- imagine the same study being done in Japan (99% of the population is Japanese) and seeing that almost all Japanese have only Japanese friends. Does that mean that they’re racist? No, it means that there are just way more Japanese than any other kind of people. I suggest you delete this post for the sake of your credibility.

You misread the article, Alexander. I didn’t say that 40% of whites are racist because they don’t have friends of color. I said that people often talk about Asians hanging together in clusters as though it is odd and racist, as though this is an indication that Asians prefer their own company to that of others because of a disdain for diversity. I was simply pointing out that to single out Asians in this way is racist in the context of a country where 40% of the majority racial group has no friends of different races. Why don’t we notice that given how this “whites only” reality gets projected onto the culture via the television shows I mentioned, all of which have been criticized for representing an idealized world and New York in particular, in which there appear to be few, often zero, people of color.

Having said that, however, I do think it’s important to note that the “entire states where the population is almost completely white” phenomena exists for a reason. For instance, I lived in Portland, Oregon for nearly 25 years. Portland’s population is overwhelmingly white and many white people, even in the city and along the I-5 corridor of development through the Willamette Valley have no friends of color and few to choose from if they wished to exercise that option. But, Oregon had a whites-only law on the books until the beginning of the last century. People of color were specifically excluded from migrating into the state over the same historical period in which more Indian tribes were terminated in Oregon than the rest of the country combined. This attracted waves of post-abolition white migrants into Oregon from states that were receiving the first waves of Southern blacks leaving the South. Throughout the Great Migration, Oregon continued to a white flight state. This continued even into the 1980s and 90s, as many fled “crime” and “urban decay” in Southern California by moving to Oregon which they viewed as “safe.” It led to some in the state putting bumper stickers on their cars reading “don’t californicate oregon.”

Where we end up concentrating as populations by race is often an indication of historical dynamics that are far from benign. For instance, I lived and worked in rural Eastern Tennessee for a while, in an area that is full of small manufacturing towns and former coal camps. The area is almost all white (though immigration is changing that quickly). But, it used to be a richly diverse area by race, with Native American nations present throughout the Appalachians. Those Native Americans were forcibly removed, with many being pushed onto the Trail of Tear. This historical events drive dynamics that continue to shape how we see and live in the world by race long after Native Americans were driven out of Appalachia and Oregon (and Colorado) excluded people of color. These dynamics tend to perpetuate racism, especially in all or mostly white environments where racism is largely unchallenged and therefore gets pretty seamlessly normalized.

that is false and you know it. Asian countries including Japan allow non-native people to immigrate. The reason why immigration to these countries is low is because people prefer to immigrate to the States than to Asian countries.

What kind of garbage misinformation are you spouting off here “DEAR LILY”? LILY is right – most Asian countries are homogeneous and want to remain that way because they don’t subscribe to western liberal left-wing concepts like racial diversity and multiculturalism. Simply put, Japan, South Korea and most other Asian countries do not accept foreigners becoming part of their societies. Nearly all foreigners in these countries can never become citizens and will only ever be granted renewable 1-year visas and work permits. Once they’ve finished working they are obliged to leave the country. Extremely few foreigners in these countries are eligible for local citizenship and the few that are eligible rarely take up the offer for some reason. Sure there are “white Japanese” or perhaps even the odd “white or black Taiwanese” but they are so rare immigration officials in western countries would be confused if they ever travelled on their Asian passports to the west.

Foreigners migrate to the US and other western countries later to become citizens because they can.

They don’t avoid Japan or Korea because they think those countries are inferior. They avoid them because those countries don’t want them.

Other Asian countries are mostly too poor to be serious contenders for immigration but some of them, especially Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and the Philippines are sufficiently attractive in terms of weather, lifestyle and the beauty of the local women that a significant number of expats both working and non-working are living there many (most ) with no plans of ever returning to the dull, boring overly regulated west.

While this is often true, I think we’re throwing the baby out with the bath water if we decide that, for this reason, we should take down affirmative action rather than simply reform it to avoid the outcome you’re describing.

Seems Asians do the same thing as whites do when confronted with the evil of their own racism they attempt to explain/excuse it away with all sorts of external factors rather than face the evil for what it is (this is the insidious nature of white supremacist racism, it is always twisting and turning blaming other factors and other people/presenting fake stats/biased historical ‘facts’ etc. etc.. all so that you cannot get a proper grip on it to kill it…it hates its nature being properly and honest examined.)

The answer is quite simple

Asians are racist to blacks because they have internalized white supremacist values, they feel inferior to whites and so will demonize those whites demonize most which are black people, which is a shame since they themselves are oppressed by whites such hypocrites!

Blacks are generally repressed by all other races because of fear, Blacks have the most genetic potential to change/absorb all other races period (mix black with any race the offspring will more than likely be dark, If that child in turn mixes back with a black person then hey presto the child for all intents will be black again *with just small features of the other race(s) showing if at all).

This physical potential plus Africa being the most resource rich place on earth drives white fear/jealousy/hatred of Blacks.

This fear is taught world wide by white owned media/Hollywood/Schools and White washed Religion.

Wow, this article was very insightful & all of your comments are quite thoughtful & intelligently-worded. I also appreciate the open & mature discussion going on here; this conversation is so civilized & polite, so so rare on the internet!!
To add my two cents, while I don’t agree with everything Ben Efsaneyim says, I believe he has a very relevant point in how Asians’ racism is oversimplified in this discussion. As he notes, even within Asian communities & countries, there is a bias towards some groups over others. This difference is greatly amplified once we begin to look at minorities in Western countries, like America. Usually, there is a significant erasure effect when people use the term “Asian”. To them, the word refers directly to Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. However many other ethnic groups like Indians, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Pakistani, Afghani, Cambodian, Thai, Malaysian, etc. aren’t ever weighed in or considered esp. when it comes to Asian Americans championing causes for their minority group. In fact, some go as far as to say they shouldn’t be included in the label “Asian” at all.
I guess, that leads into my question for all of you. What should be done about that situation? Before we talk about Asian racism, I think it’s pertinent to define the word Asian itself. Is an Indian American expected to identify himself as an Asian & work on Asian-American issues despite the lack of acknowledgement for his existence he receives from more accepted Asians? Should there be a separation? Are both groups that distinct?
This question has always puzzled me when people discuss Asian American issues and I think it’s one that it’s about time we answered…

Because you are only factoring in a majority white country, all of your findings are flawed on race. The simple fact is that working class asians are treated better in white countries than white people are in asian countries. African countries vavour black people, and do ‘t even get me started on China and India.
Do you k ow for example that India recently changed all visa rules, they not only outlawed foreigners buying houses but also outlawed foreigners selling their homes. All non-Indian. The issue is that everyone wants to ignore non-white racism or at best trace its cause back to white people. The truth is, racism is negatively impacting any individual based on categorisation of the individual, and that category being a generalised lablel often created by propaganda

Asians worship whites. Asia is a white man’s paradise, and Black people (men especially) just shouldn’t travel there. Blacks should boycott Asian businesses. In fact, it’s Blacks against the world. We’ll never make friends with these other races, so it’s just not worth it. What little advancement we made is shrinking on a global level.

Globally, the only thing Blacks are renowned for is entertainment, and since other races can “twerk” and “hip-hop” now (check out K-pop), they don’t need us, so we are becoming totally irrelevant. Time to separate since we’re not wanted anyway, and do for self.

Your attempt to damn white Appalachia with faint praise by calling them “no more or less racist” than other white Americans falls flat when you compare voting patterns from the last two elections interregionally.

A majority of white males over the age of 35 in the state of Massachusetts voted for Barack Obama. That is a fact. If we’re going to talk about prejudice, I would say being a registered Democrat who voted for the D Presidential ticket in multiple prior elections who is however unable to pull the lever for Barack Obama, does, on aggregate, speak to PREJUDICE, unthinking, blind, ignorant prejudice, which, given the rural nature of Appalachia, the long dependence on government largesse explicitly or implicitly given in the furtherance of white supremacy, from “removing” the Cherokee to the TVA, and the long history of avoiding or simply burying any sort of ethnic diversity* makes the long, uncomfortable journey from anti-slavery refuseniks to racist holdouts almost inevitable.

*-there are tales yet to be told about tri-racial isolate communities in Appalachia and people of Middle Eastern heritage in Appalachia. Unfortunately, the history of both have been heavily obscured.

That region is Cherokee country and should have stayed Cherokee country. It also has a rich, multi-ethnic history and a present very much in jeopardy due to the impact of the resource-energy-extraction business.

By painting all whites as equally racist/prejudiced, you give cover to white supremacists and enable a sort of might-makes-right moral relativism that implies that any person in a position of power would take advantage, so there are no grounds to condemn those who do. One side of my family is stocked with unabashed racists and anti-Semites and the other side with anti-racist activists who have put their own welfare on the line for what they believed in. There IS a difference.

I get what you’re saying. I lived in Appalachia and worked at the Highlander Center, the civil rights training school that produced, among other things, the Citizenship Schools back in the days of the Civil Rights Movement. I know it’s Cherokee country and agree it should have stayed Cherokee Country. I also know that a Highlander sponsored research project into the coal camps of Appalachia discovered that the total amount of property taxes paid in an entire mostly company-owned county amounted to less money than is required to pay for a school bus tire. And between mountaintop removal and toxic dumping, much of the ground water in hill communities is too polluted with heavy metals to be safe for fishing, much less for drinking, and flooding, including floods taking out big chunks of whole communities, is a regular occurrence. The situation is complicated.

This issue also comes up with Asian immigrants who vote Republican. Certain groups, like the Vietnamese, vary from the general pattern among Asian Americans in that they tend to register Republican. But, the reason they do so is important to understanding why they don’t always vote that way in general elections. If you understand the reason, it’s a lot easier to move them from that position. White working class Appalachians have their reasons for voting as they do, and your rationale is among them. But there are other reasons for the racism of Appalachia. When you get down to those reasons, it starts to look quite possible to move them. But, in order to do that, there needs to be grassroots work done between elections and through organizations indigenous to the people of the region. That isn’t happening much, in part because liberal donors and foundations often buy into the idea that the region is intractably racist, much to the chagrin of people of color who live in the region who’d like to catch a break, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, just wanted to say, I know what you mean, but there’s more to that story that statistics don’t speak to. And, you know, I lived in Portland, Oregon for 25 years and was very active in politics there. Oregon is full of white supremacists. It used to be my job to document their presence and build opposition to them. Oregon had a whites only law until the early part of last century. That’s why it’s so white. That also made it into a white flight state starting just after the Civil War. The Posse Comitatus was founded in Oregon. In the 1920s, one of our three Oregon white residents belonged to the Klan. Oregon contains more terminated tribes than the rest of the country combined. Portland used to be home to multiple tribes, but now has only a tiny urban Indian community. I used to think that made Oregon especially racist. But then I found out that Colorado has a similar history. Meanwhile, Washington State has a history of terror and violence directed against Asian immigrants, and Seattle used to be Duwamish. The Duwamish are now fighting to create a presence in that city through building a longhouse that has been strongly opposed by some. Idaho was home to the Aryan Nations.

I funded hundreds of group in the Northwest region earlier this century when I worked for a Washington-based regional progressive foundation. I traveled all through Montana, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Wyoming. I found them each to articulate their own brands of racism. Montana’s state legislature includes overt white supremacists and is home to many white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizations, including Christian Identity groups who believe that people of color are mistakes God made before getting it right and making a white Adam. Idaho sent Helen Chenoweth to Congress – she of the famous black helicopters.

The West Coast tolerated the mass incarceration of nearly every Japanese American resident during WWII. Whites in Hawai’i used the occasion of over 300,000 Native Hawaiians suddenly dying of diseases they brought to Hawai’i to consolidate a power base there that they maintained through the establishment of a white, Republican oligarchy that rule the islands for about 80 years. My own grandmother was whipped to work by a white resident of Hawaii back in the day, causing a miscarriage in the sugar fields. She still had to finish her day, cutting cane. The descendents of those people may have been pushed out of power by their own hubris, including importing too many Asian immigrant laborers that becoming a state meant losing control of Hawaii politics, but they are still there in the margins, and some of them are still white supremacists.

We fool ourselves into thinking that some groups of whites are more racist than others. Their racism is expressed differently. I would argue that the reason Oregon voters tend to be less race sensitive and more Democratic is because communities of color there are so small. They’re not a threat. But scratch that surface as Portland did during the early years of the war on crack, and that liberal veneer gives way to deep seated racism. When the stakes go up, people show their true colors.

I think the numbers and stats stand for them selves: Japan, South Korea, an Taiwan are strong economies (despite Japan’s lost decade) BUT yet their are strong hiring preferences to ONLY hire locals… Germany is as old a culture as it’s Asian counter parts–yet many more foreigners work, live ( yes and suffer) in it’s cities than in Tokyo or Seoul….Why can’t South Korea, Japan, and even Taiwan enact laws that prohibit discrimination based on race such as in the West and accept more foreign workers?

For a region that can not even have laws and policies that make racial discrimination illegal, is an indictment of its native citizens’ attitude to “live side by side” other races.

And for the record, learning to write, read, and speak Japanese to study medicine for 7 years in Japan (for a white-man) is a perfect example that hard study works…but that Asian laws and Asian racial attitudes do work effectively to keep foreigners out. A little reciprocity in laws would go a long way in Asia…

Are you really going to say that Japan and South Korea are better to foreign workers than the U.S.? Remember that fence on our Southern border? Just what are we debating in Congress now if not a horribly oppression guest worker program leading to a very uncertain path to citizenship that includes what amounts to an English-Only provision? The U.S. has never been good to non-white foreign workers unless they need them for a particular reason, like South Asians who are brought to the U.S. with fast-track visas last century because medicaid and medicare caused a labor shortage in the medical services field. Even then, as with agricultural workers, good treatment is by no means the norm. Slavery would be one good example. Our unwillingness to address the legacy of slavery would be another.

If Japan and Korea were short highly skilled workers foreigners with those skills would certainly be more welcome. That’s what welcome immigration has always been about all over the world. But, what they are short on is low wage workers, and they do welcome that class of workers, mainly from other Asian countries. Americans would never put up with that kind of work as demonstrated by what happens in our apple orchards when undocumented workers are chased out of the fields. No one replaces them and the fruit just rots.

Your response is so typical American believing that every migrant strives to work in the U.S. I avoided America at all cost, and migrated to Canada, from Japan via Germany. You seem to view people are rather two-dimensional, people are pulled to advanced economies for many reasons.My point is simple: It should be a level playing field for everyone in all advanced economies at this point in time

My background is as an anesthesiologist and yes sectors of many Asian economies do have a skilled workers shortage. Case in point are nurses, OB doctors,support workers, etc in Japan…Many Filipino nurses are recruited every year as “nurses” in Japan, but the government makes the Japanese nursing licencing exam so difficult for them, that over 96 % fail and are required to leave.

Again, I resent the American attitude that every person on this earth strives to live and work in the USA and talk about what happens in Congress.– Even to this day, I would rather live in Japan (safe, clean, polite society) than in a dysfunctional, violent “democracy” like the States.

I don’t think I said that every one wants to live and work in America. I actually used to live and work in Mexico by choice and have considered living and working in Canada and Asia when opportunities were offered to me. I see the lure. My point was not that everyone shouldn’t be held to the same standard. In fact, holding certain Asian countries to a higher standard when welcoming immigrants than we hold America to is where I thought we disagreed, but maybe I’m wrong about that.

But, you’re right. Asian countries like Japan do have highly skilled labor shortages. I appreciate the correction. And, yes, they do turn to countries like the Philippines to fill those shortages. Those workers generally tend to be cheaper, btw. And, yes, you should get to work where you like and maybe Japan would be a better place to work. I grew up in Hawai’i. I never thought of it as the U.S. proper because we are so different and many long for the U.S. to leave Hawai’i, me included.

Yes, I believe this is at the heart of it. Although I would say many people who never experience Japan has a flawed understanding of the attitude toward ethnic minorities. I am myself mixed Latin American / Japanese from Chile originally and taught in Japan for a few years.

I don’t believe that the expression of racism in Japan is aggressive like it is sometimes in the states. America is very violent. You only have to look at the crazy right wing vigilantes who patrol the border with military weapons to see that. In Japan you have the right wingers who scream racist anti-Zanichi speech from megaphones and the politicians who deny war atrocities. But usually I don’t hear about the murder of an immigrant because of racism.

But it is true that lack of exposure to outsiders means many people are also suspicious of people perceived to be something other than Japanese.

Often I found my foreign friends are denied housing because they are not ethnic Japanese, even though many of them lived there a long time and are polite people. But there’s the expectation that foreigners will be noisy and destructive. To some extent you understand the attitude because there are incident of American soldiers doing things and the whole thing is swept under the rug.

Even ethnic Japanese or East Asians who are culturally Westernized are treated differently. I remember often being asked why I didn’t know some kanji, “your mother should have taught this to you”, etc.

But the difference is that this is completely legal. Whereas in America or England or even in Chile if this were to happen someone would call it out. Nobody in Japan calls it out because 99% of people are the same ethnicity.

Often it happens like you said, they just make the requirements so difficult not even native people could pass them. It’s the same in the states. Or any first world country for that matter. The barrier to entry is enormous because they think it keeps out the ‘riffraff’. But I think in Western countries there is more chance to adapt because they are so diverse. Japan simply is not.

That’s not to say I think Japanese are racist or more racist than Westerners. There are plenty of both and I hold them to the same standard.

But most Japanese people I’ve known personally are against discrimination and I felt very safe there. So I think people tend to simplify the picture too much.

But there are up to 20 million undocumented people in the US. Many of them are allowed driver’s licenses, allowed to be treated in our ER rooms, and the children that they have here become American citizens. Undocumented people/immigrants in the U.S. and many Western countries have a lot more rights than in Asian countries. Your argument seems to revolve around anecdotes and emotion instead of actual facts. When you look at the numbers and the laws, it really does paint a picture that the West is more welcoming to foreigners and immigrants than Asia. I’m Asian myself, btw.

Yeah I would say so to for the most part (That last sentence). But is it not because of the global attitudes (the world revolves around the West and it has become fact that people from all over will flock here), the laws that are strictly enforced (and what I mean by this is that no matter what people think about internationals, they cannot do certain things to them), and the fact that the West is just much more diverse than all the other parts of the world?

It gets very interesting. For sure immigrants get more legal rights and a more vibrant welcoming compared to Asia and other parts of the world, but whether the people truly like it or not is a different story.

I posted on your Portland article about growing up there etc. I was surprised to see you stand up the way you did because of more recent experiences. Although my experiences in Portland with Asians I think mostly Vietnamese was awesome. I must say I was shocked after I married my hubby who is half white half Korean. My mom is black and Native and my dad is white. In all fairness my hubby is the only Asian man I’ve ever been with. I have never seen such racism in my life. I have dated white guys and never seen, heard and been subjected to as much racism as with this family. They hid it real good until some of their Korean relatives flew in from California for our wedding. They said nasty things in Korean not thinking my Korean friend and bridesmaid would tell me. One lady actually approached a phillipino friend of mine and asked if he “was a black”. I thought it was just their influence but nope. It’s mainly against blacks but anti white as well and his dad is white.
When our daughter who is now three was born is when it really went to another level. My hubby’s sisters all are married to white guys. When my daughter was born my mother in law started saying that she was more beautiful than the others that looked white because she looked Korean. Her granddaughter also started saying it and feeling bad about herself which makes her mom act a certain way towards my daughter. Then came more black comments I have even heard the N word used not toward my daughter who they consider just Korean but nasty comments towards blacks in general. They treat my black relatives one way and the whites completely different. I honestly think my hubby treats my white friends and relatives different too. My mother in law had a business in a black community and has done well. I really don’t get it. The excuse is well that’s other blacks they don’t feel that way about you. I know my daughter doesn’t look black but my mom is and she loves her very much. I don’t want them around her really to infest her with that crap and this causes many arguments with the hubby. My friend that is Korean says that this is common.

This debate is very USA centric. In Sydney Australia 18% of the city is Asian. I myself am a Jewish Australian who had dated, Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Indonesians. All my friends are Asian and I have lived in South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. In my experience, there is a certain level of skin colour discrimination against anyone of a darker skin colour, ask a Tamil in Singapore or a Filipina in HK….this is very common in my experience. When I was in SK there was a substantially negative view of African Americans. But overall filipino’s are NOT racist, but overall I’d say the most openly and unashamed racist views I’ve ever heard were from Hong Kongers, Singaporean Chinese, Chinese and Koreans. Oh yeah I’ve lived in Osaka too, didn’t experience any racism.

Just wondering—-why is there such a hate for African-Americans in South Korea Considering that black people have never even done anything to them, and is very few of us over there anyway, Where’s the hate coming from? I used to go to a site called Black Tokyo which detailed the experiences of black Americans living,working or studying in Tokyo and how the racism there operated. It was a very interesting and fun site to go for a view of Japan you rarely heard about in the mainstream news. The site may still be around, but the owner did a complete overhaul of it, so it’s no longer the site I wen to a decade ago.

I’m African American, I live in NYC and have been dating a Chinese woman for 5 years. My experiences are only limited to the US. The amount of stares and double-takes from Asians(specifically Koreans, Chinese and Japanese) is far greater than any other race. Usually when they walk by us, they don’t really look at me. Instead, they look at my gf as if she may be in trouble and in need of some assistance(as if I have a hidden gun in her back ready to shoot if she tries to run). I’m an avg height guy with an athletic build and I definitely don’t dress like I’m from the hood…because I’m not. Another classic scenario occurs when we walk into a Japanese, Korean or Chinese establishment. All of the patrons stare and whisper as if the devil has just walked in. Now, I’m thinking, “We’re in NYC where you get all kinds of combinations…why is it such a shock for you to see me and my gf together?” To me this is not only ignorant, it is a slap in the face to the very country in which we live. I’ve dated a caucasian woman in the past and have never had these problems. Based off of my personal(again my personal) experiences, Japanese, Korean and Chinese cultures are the most racist Asian cultures that I’ve encountered.

That sucks that it happened to you. I cannot really defend the ones who stared at you (though you DO have to consider that, perhaps, some of these people are FOB and culture shocked to put it nicely). I could say that IR relations between Blacks and Asians (regardless of who is the man and who is the woman)… well… its limiting to say the least. You are a Black man with an Asian woman, you could only imagine what the reverse sex coupling goes through (Black men/Asian women couplings are very small, Asian men/Black women couplings are even smaller).

I will say though that, for your experience with a white woman, you kind of got lucky. Someone I know, who is Filipino and married to a white woman, got quite a bit of stares by white people (particularly white men). All I can say is to keep at it and ignore (and try not to internalize). I know, easier said then done. Remember that no one, and I mean absolutely no one, could do anything to you guys.

P.S. Actually. I just remembered something. Yes there could be racism/prejudices internalized in these peoples heads, but there is also the whole staring culture in East Asia. They do not necessarily do it out of displeasure or the like (though you could bet that at least some probably do), but its just how they do socially. That’s another thing to keep in mind.

Interesting because my situation is different and I’m a black female and my boyfriend is from Japan. We do get stared at a lot but its usually by Chinese or Korean, not so much with Japanese people and we’re in NYC as well. We go in Japanese owned establishments frequently and I never detect any staring and I’m quick to notice if someone is staring I ALWAYS stare back because it’s extremely rude, just a few weeks ago at Target in College Point I had to stare down a Chinese woman because she would not stop staring at us, we passed her and she kept staring which was when I had started staring back. The odd thing though is once my boyfriend starts speaking Japanese (he’s sometimes mistaken for Chinese), the stares are directed his way. He answered his phone while we were standing in line and a woman (Chinese too) went from glancing at us to staring at him when he was conversing with his coworker in Japanese (I stared at her the entire time she stared at him). Seriously the shit makes me crazy! And a few times I’ve seen white guys staring at us (usually with Asian women) I stare back at them too and it’s far more annoying coming from them because it just tells me they think interracial means white person + person of color (statistically white people are least likely to be involved in interracial relationships).

Every Asian and Asian American kid I knew growing up in SF Bay Area was victimized by gangs of black kids. Black kids constantly steal from Asian owned businesses. Black kids constantly use racial slurs against Asians. This continues into adulthood – see the recent movie Linsanity. Asian immigrants do not care about what kind of history black Americans have gone through. They do not understand why they are being targeted. They just know they are being targeted because of how they look and especially by a certain other group of people. Why wouldn’t any normal person in that situation become prejudiced against black people? Only an idiot would continue to trust people who looked a certain way and acted and spoke a certain way, long after being victimized by them. The fault lies not with the Asians. There, I said it.

Misinformation my “you-know-what” lol East Asians are racist and are not oppressed like African Americans or even South Asians. And even whites actually. And while I’m not saying there is not some prejudice towards them (just like anyone), from a socioeconomic standpoint, theyre NOT a true OPPRESSED minority. They get treated better and are accepted more in society than a black person and even someone of native american/latin american heritage (even though many latin americans are “caucasian”). I actually learned about this from a college course I took and the course was about the social construction of race and ethnicity in the US. YES, often, EAST Asians are extremely racist. And ignorant too because they don’t aknowledge South Asian culture from countries like India, when Buddhism comes from India. So from a socioeconimic standpoint, they are NOT a true minority. I’m Italian American and was often look down apon from wasps and east asians alike. I actually consider japanese the wasps of asia. It sounds messed up, but it’s a great analogy in terms of ethnicity. Please understand that I think Asians deny their racism. Yes they do. And Ive done research to come to this conclusion, so I’m not just talking out of my you know what. Learn that RACISM=prejudice plus power…Asians and whites both have power over blacks, however, whites are socioeconomic equals with whites and therefore whites do not have power over Asians. But both groups have power over others. Many Asians are more racist towards blacks. This is the absolute truth.

I am sorry Figgie, but that does not cut it. We ARE minorities. We do NOT have power except, as you said, from a socioeconomic standpoint. What is proven is, number one, Asian Americans could have all the money, status, fame, whatever they want, and they still won’t be acknowledged (in the same ballpark as white people). We do not have very many privileges. Whenever you meet people of Asian descent that you met firsthand, how confident are you that they could speak fluent English? Were you worried about cultural differences, whether they are of American nationality or not? Worried about us being too weird? Wonder if we have eaten dogs, cats, or horses on occasion? There’s also the big one: being seen as perpetual “foreigners” regardless of nationality. Oh and that’s just the negative stereotyping. Do not get my started on the racial fetishism (the point here is to not simply prove prejudices, but to hone in on discourse, which is what I will talk about next).

Number two, the DISCOURSE has not changed or rather has not been favorable. The difference between East Asians and other minorities is that they closely follow the system set up by the higher ups of the West. So what does that mean? It means throwing away our “roots” and culture. We only gain “power”… through assimilation, or the nice term for white-washing. And even then, it is safe to say that there is not much power to exert whatsoever. Basically, to counter your point, just because whites and Asians are socioeconomic equals does NOT equal power. I am willing to bet your “research” only looked at the incomes by race/ethnicity.

We are not oppressed? Oh please. The global society has always been built between white versus non-white. It is obvious, no matter how many Asians try to act it, that Asian people are not white. You could talk about have more money and being treated slightly better by white people or the higher ups, but the fact is we will NEVER be white. To say that there is only “some” prejudice against Asians is extremely laughable. If you are not “white,” you’re screwed.

The racism by Asians (which I will not exclude), is, once again, due to influence by the West. That is exactly what Scot here is saying. The West created their BS against black people, which then shock waved to Asia. The problem? The people of Asia did not adjust (unless they move to or are born into the West). If you want to play this game, Asians do not deny their racism anymore than everyone else (So yes I admit that some unknown number of Asians are indeed racist, but it is pointless to try to scale everyone).

P.S. I am starting to see the problem here. Minorities are basically fighting for who gets screwed more, and who is favorable to white people or whoever the power group is. This is getting ridiculous. We are all getting screwed, simple as that.

Being an Asian male, while realizing this is a gross generalization, I think that our females are much, much more racist than most Asian males. There’s something in our culture that makes us feel superior to blacks for some ridiculous reason. To my female Asian friends, there is nothing lower than blacks. Then middle easterners/arabs. Then, the rest of us asians — the pecking order is clearly, the lighter the skin the better. Koreans and especially Japanese are thought to be a cut above. Then, of course, Caucasians. Just about all Asian women seem to absolutely love white men far above us Asians. I can’t really tell what they think of white women, but I think they are very much swayed by their views of fashion, etc.

I’m a little late to this conversation but it was so interesting that I just have to comment. I am only speaking from my experience as a black, woman in America. I don’t think people from Asia are any more racist than anyone else in this country. I do not buy the attitude that Asians are racist (towards blacks) because this is what they see once they arrive in America. To an extent this may be true but it is also true that just because one witnesses certain actions doesn’t mean that person has to mimic those actions. I have never been to any Asian countries but I’ve heard many things from my father (Vietnam Vet) and friends who have traveled abroad. From what I’ve been told, Americans (during the Vietnam War) were either worshiped or hated. Many Vietnamese women saw American GI’s as a hassle free way to get to America. My father has said that the families of those women were incredibly racist toward the black soldiers but tolerated the unions because white soldiers were less interested in taking home Vietnamese brides. The likelihood that their racism was based on messages received from Western depictions of black people isn’t high. We’re talking about the mid to late 1960’s in rural villages where there was no access to the global media. That type of racism is homegrown. Black, for whatever reason, has always been seen as a negative in many cultures throughout the world.

As a child growing up on military bases throughout the U.S., I had friends of varying racial, ethnic, national, and cultural backgrounds. The only racist comments I ever heard came from the mother of a Caucasian family. I didn’t understand it and therefore didn’t respond or react to it. I spent so much time at my friends homes that my favorite foods growing up consisted of dishes from Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, and Puerto Rican cuisine. So imagine my surprise when I entered a Korean liquor store and was followed and harassed by the owners. I was a teenager at this point and the store was not located on the base. It may be possible that those owners had been subjected to racism and subsequently responded in kind. The problem with that type of attitude is that it doesn’t solve anything. Justifying your behavior by saying ‘well they did it to me’ is juvenile. Excusing the racist behavior and attitudes of friends and family is weak. We live in an era of unprecedented access to information. There is no excuse for people’s ignorance anymore. Living in a community that is predominately your own race is also a pretty lame argument. How does anyone consider themselves a well rounded individual if they won’t even take the time to explore cultures outside of their own?

It is amazing to me that, in a country as culturally and ethnically diverse as the U.S., we appear to be more divided than ever. Everyone has their own agenda. It almost feels as though people don’t believe they can exist in society at large and still be true to their own culture. And it most certainly does not have to be that way.

“Prejudice vs Racist”…these two terms are clearly not the same thing. Prejudice can come against a plethora of things besides race. Being racist is governed to race only!. These subject matters are clearly taken way outta context. If people had a true understanding of the heart of a person, then there would be no such thing as seeing someone and judging them by the color of their skin. “Point blank and a period.”!

Because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with preferring my own race, or being with my own people. The idea that having ethnic or racial self interest makes someone racist was something promoted by leftist agitators to exaggerate racism in an age where overt racism has gone underground. They need that victimhood narrative to keep their supporters riled up.

I WILL privilege another Asian over a non-Asian, all other factors being equal. Doesn’t mean I hate non-Asians, it means I like Asians more. If that’s racist, then I’m racist.

Actually, privileging your group over another doesn’t necessarily make you racist, just as preferring someone with black hair over someone with blonde hair doesn’t make you racist. What makes you racist is when you take that attitude and use it to justify acts that result in privilege to one group at the expense of another. For most of U.S. history this is what has been done. In the name of white supremacy, legal codes were created that excluded other people from participation in society and worse, sanctioned genocide, forced assimilation, slavery, black codes designed to re-enslave newly freed black slaves on chain gangs, Jim Crow, anti-Chinese persecution by federal law enforcement, Japanese American internment, The Gentleman’s Agreement, and laws that disenfranchised people and excluded them from marriage rights, property ownership, federal employment..the list goes on. That’s why I call racism a political construct. Whatever prejudices you may have, you’re entitled to them. I’m not about policing how you think. But when those prejudices are used to justify political acts that have the effect of making some people more vulnerable to economic exploitation and political exclusion and persecution, that’s quite a different thing.

Oooh, I guessed wrong, myoung. You claim “Asian”. You sure talk like a white person. “Leftist agitators”? More typical white supremacist arguments. It is possible you are “Asian” (can’t know for sure online), but you frame and pattern your opinions on white supremacist-style rhetoric.

Maybe you’re just trolling. Probably didn’t read the article either. Your comment is not responding directly to the article; There wasn’t any focus on privileging people or a groups self-interest.

No offense intended if you are in fact “Asian”. Your comments suggest otherwise.

I’m Black and I have many Asian friends, and the issue of race or being different never came up. I’ve also got to understand that Asians hang out with each other in groups because they feel a sense of belonging. Asians act entirely different from other races to be honest, not saying they are better but every race acts differently. I can’t see why everything regarding race has to be so trivial, but racism will forever exist so don’t expect everyone to be tolerable

I am a filipino who looks black because of my brown color. It’s common in Philippine to be called negro and it’s fine with me and to most … Don’t get offended when you are called negro in PI … it doesn’t really matter. Here in the US you can’t call someone like that especially when he is black or you’ll be called racist or you’ll get your face busted. I remember one time my uncle who just came from PI … he was telling me story that he was talking to a negro neighbor. I said what uncle ? don’t tell negro here you will be in trouble ? he said oh yeah ? but i am also called negro in PI that’s in PI when there is no white guys … but here is totally different.

In defense of ‘Asians’ (which is too broad a category and is really just white people saying everyone that isn’t us that we are connected to by land), Asian racism for the most part won’t make you fear for your lives and personal safety, if the gun wielding Korean shop owner is unpleasant you can just not shop there anymore (and they will have lost money from not being nicer). It’s mostly bark… not being stalked and fatally bitten, like white racism which is this omnipresent threat to life and liberty. Even in Asia, China and India despite their size and longevity have no real history of genocide. Really only Japan and Turkey do, interestingly both happened immediately after copying the West (The Meiji Restoration and The Young Turks). I was going to say maybe Indonesian violence against ethnic Chinese, but even that was started by the Dutch Colonial Government. Maybe there is Sunni-Shia violence, but in Iraq at least that hornets nest was kicked by the US (they were getting along fine before). Iran-Iraq wars – US pulling strings. And Jews in Arab countries were fine until Britain gave Palestine to some European Jews. Pakistan-India – how much of that is Britain’s fault exporting Nationalism and drawing haphazard borders? To put it another way, I’m not Chinese (or East Asian) but I wouldn’t be afraid of visiting China a few thousand years ago… but I would be terrified of visiting Northern Europe a few thousand years ago.

Asians are racist. Heck, we can’t even get along with other Asians (the Chinese and Japanese have this thing going between them…). More importantly, it is worth noting that you see a lot of talk about not falling into the evils of racism going on in Western countries, but not much of that in China. However, if you look at a certain country in Southeast Asia (I will not mention names in case my I.P is traced), you will see that they have institutionalized racism. And when I say institutionalized, I don’t just mean give them more social security and benefits; I mean actual declarations in the constitution that they are the rightful owners of the country, and so on…
Maybe some Westerners practice racism covertly, but over here, it is enshrined in the law.
Source: An Asian living in an Asian Country.

I can definitely relate to what’s being written here. I know Asian relatives and family friends who discuss negative stereotypes about people from other races, but I think they are racist without knowing it (or ignorant). When I first came to America, I don’t remember having such stereotypes in my mind. I agree that immigrants are exposed to all sorts of stereotypes, especially those perpetuated by white folks. Even back in Asia, I think Asians have some preconceptions. That link showing Chinese people in China stroking and looking at the black family like they are some type of novelty is quite disturbing. It’s like they’ve never seen black people before. Growing up, I hear all sorts of stereotypes, like the one relating to gorrillas and how certain types of people are lazy and alcohol bingers. Logical thinking people would not believe in such stereotypes, because everyone is unique and so different from each other. I also notice that many Asians tend to worship white people and try to emulate them, probably in an effort to fit in. My family kept saying negative things about people of color but rarely criticize white people. Instead, they praise white people for their academics, civility, and way of doing things. I think being around diverse people and actually getting to know them individually would help in dispelling the stereotypes.

Yes, there are some Asians out there that are racist, but not all. EVERY race has people that are prejudiced against a certain group. You can talk and write about how much Asians hate this, hate that, don’t like that, don’t like this, but Asians aren’t the only ones that are racist. Remember that.

My point of view might be biased to you, but to me, I only focus on wisdom and pure truth. I am Taiwanese (Chinese, whatever), and I grew up with Asian parents who are immigrants. I grew up in a community about 55% Asian (1/3 Asian Indian), 30% white, and 15% black, Hispanic, American Indian, Pacific Islander, etc. We all mixed pretty well, and it was one of the best neighborhoods to live in so there wasn’t much serious prejudice. We were all raised pretty well.

But, I must say, growing up with immigrant Asians, Asians (not all) are racist. The Asian Americans, as the ones born in this country, are less or not prejudiced at all than the immigrant Asians. Many of my Asian relatives have a strong dislike towards Asian Indians, blacks, and Latinos. They consider blacks and Latinos as slackers that don’t study, don’t get good grades, don’t go to college, and just sit there committing a crime. They are fine with the whites, other Asians (besides Indians), and the rest, I don’t know.

My parents and grandparents consider Asian Indians as people who are so desperate that they jump to any opportunity they can get. I guess they’re thinking about the arranged marriages with the five-year-old girls. But my mother is ok with young, Indian girls; she thinks they’re the victims most of the time.

In my opinion, my relatives that speak negatively on racial stereotypes are just ignorant. They aren’t like the Westboro Baptist Church, standing there, reminding people of how much they hate this certain group all the time. They’re just really ignorant.

Asians in America tends to hang out with other asians just because they feel more comfortable around people of their own race.Just like that white people in asia tends to hang out with the whites because they feel more comfortable.There is nothing racist about that.But it is thus true that some asians are a little close minded.I have a friend that lives in SK and says that majority of the people there aren’t really open up to foreigners.But not all.Just like that my other friend who stays in America says that not all the people are nice there.Some are racist and some not.(by the way,am from India).So i guessed racism is everywhere.As long as our face and looks and cultures are different,there are going to be some people who are racist.That is just nature.So why dont we stop asking why the asians are so racists,and start asking why some humans are so racists.

Hi Scot,
I’d like to address you directly in my reply, seeing that you have done so well maintain this article for so long now. I have found myself at this article at least three times since the time you’ve written it, always scrolling the comments and rereading the points you made in your original text. I feel there is no need to go over alot of the things I agreed with those disagreeing with you have ready written. But I’d like to give my perspective now. After reading many of these “racist Asia” blogs. I feel my perspective can really help.

I live in China. I have lived here for about a year now. I live in a city of about 10-12 million Han Chinese and I am quite sure I am one of a good 10-12 black people that are here for a while. I am over 180cm and I am from the states.

I first came to China in two years ago two visit Beijing, surprisingly after visiting Japan (yes, I am that black guy obsessed with “Asian culture).” So in that time I spoke zero Chinese and people were taking pictures of me the Northwestern Urumqi would always grab me and I loved it! For the first 3 days of my 7 days trip. After my breaking point it still did not stop, what was even worse was my tour guide was my friends uncle who would constantly drag my friend and I to many tourist destinations for more people screaming for pictures touching my skin and giving fake smiles. At the end of the trip, I hated Beijing, not to mention China. Nevertheless I returned.

Now I live in China, not teaching. I’ve learned the language to near fluency in around a year and I am able to interact with the Chinese and gauge their perceptions of me from a non foreigner standpoint. I would like to say to anyone non-asian still in this forum, you have nothing to complain about until you understand COMPLETELY what people are saying about you. Full sentences and the cultural and historical backing behind it. That is not to say they aren’t racist.

Learning Chinese has become a double edged sword. I no longer walk around thinking people think of me as a celebrity as on user said. I do know, that they are (from a cultural and historical perspective) not attracted, or accustomed to “black” skin. The things most people say are hideous in fact and if you don’t have the stomach for it, it can nearly drive you insane. But one thing I can say is that it is not racism. I don’t know about Japan or South Korea (which I’ve also heard is intensely racist, towards ANYONE not Korean…. even more so blacks), but I do know that the Chinese are willing to change and adapt, they do very quickly as well. I’ve also realized that the issue that drives a fissure between black and asian relations is LANGUAGE. Most of the foreigners I know here do not give any real effort into studying the native tongue and therefore have this perception of Chinese that is incorrect, alot of time the claim them to be racists, which I feel isn’t exactly the case.

To approach that racism issue, yes there are quite a lot of Chinese that are racist, but it is in other ways. Chinese are concerned mainly about making money, doing business, continuing lineage. This becomes a racial issue if a Westerner or Black/African man dates a Chinese woman. The perception the Chinese are fed is that blacks are poor, they are hoodlums and that China is “repairing” the entire country. A Chinese person will welcome nearly anyone into there home with open arms…unless you are a black man walking in with their daughter.

Yes, Chinese people sometimes laugh when I walk down the street, unknowingly preparing themselves to be corrected. Yes they (not so often anymore) take pictures of. Yes if you want to move into an apartment outside of the “Nigerian town/city” of Shenzhen in China….the police will make it very hard. I actually had to take my white friend with me and let him sit there after being refused to register to rent an apartment at the police station. Then they let me register no problem. Coincidence I guess.

But even with all of this, “racism” I am experiencing women nor men have never moved to the other side of the road when I walk down the street, I’ve never been stopped by a police officer, I’ve never been refused directions or general help, I’ve never been denied any service (other than what happened at that police station), I’ve never been spat on or shot at or called a 黑鬼 (nigg*r) for no reason, I’ve never felt threatened and the people that have seen me more than once, especially those who I’ve chatted with, instantly forget skin color.

China, let alone Asia, is damn complex. I’m not sure how other countries take to learning foreigners soeaking their language but if it’s anything like China, I think you’d be golden with the community even outside of the native country itself. One thing I have observed about the Asian community that I agree with in your post, Scot, is that Asians identify with each other in the west, I think that is because of the subtle similarities in culture. I think that the richness of NE Asian culture is so much that if you can grasp a respectable amount of the language or vital part of cultural you can force any person to look past your skin color and have something to identify with. That is to say if the person is an immigrant.

I went to Japan and I couldn’t understand anything. I had a blast though and the Japanese are so much more civilized in the way they do things. No random picture taking or angry looks or anything like that. My friend even caught the train from Osaka to Tokyo to show me around for a day. Japan was awesome, although I wish I had the perspective of being able to communicate with Japanese when I was there.

From the stuff I heard about the racism in Korea. I don’t see a trip being made there soon. Sad thing is most of my friends back home are Korean, most of my friends! Not just Asian friends.

Race is a factor, I am African American that married a Fillipino and I use my married last name. When I am screened over the phone they love me, soon as I walk in the place of business and the interviewer is Asian I never get the job. Not once, or twice but so far to count on 5 different occasions. There excuse I’m over qualified, but if that was the case I was screened thoroughly over the phone. This is so crazy and depressing, I have a background and can’t get hired because the managers are Asian. So you guys can say whatever you want I am being discriminated by this race.

This is a very interesting piece, Scot. It is good to see someone of Asian descent really think of sociological topics such as this. As of right now (unless something pops up in my head later), you basically nailed it (the general points anyway), especially about the racial thought processes. I would also hone in even more about institutionalism.

I am seeing a bit of a “Black versus Asian” clash here. I am all but done getting into this topic, but let me say this:This split between Black and Asian people… is exactly what white people/men (or whoever the real “power” group is) want. We are basically pitted each other for the attention of this “power” figure. So my fellow commentators, take this with a grain of salt and think harder before trying to “fight” each other. One last thing before I want to get to what I really want to discuss: If ALL minorities truly unified together (and not half ass it), white people/the power figure cannot touch us.

Now the question I want to ask Scot, what do you think of “whiteness?” And could you clarify even more of its effect on Asian societies (the purpose here is for your thought process)? I find it rather amusing that you experienced the “why do Asians stick with other Asians” question. I actually think that it is the reverse! I have never seen solid in-groupings of Asian Americans until college! I have always felt that, at least based on my reads of other Asian Americans and my own personal experience, clinging on to our Asian roots is “shameful.” At least with Latino and Black culture there is some celebration of it in this country (although it is really seen as an exotic rather than a sincere celebration, which is not good either).

The discourse of being “Asian American” is then set: either be “white-washed” and assimilate with American culture or be shunned as that stereotypical “nerdy” and “weird” Asian dude/chick. One of you (TwoDogs?) questioned the associations of Asians and Whites (basically it is a suck up to whites and, in the process, seemingly ignore other races, namely Black people). Let us put everything together with what we have so far. If we combine paragraph 2 and what I’ve wrote for paragraph 3, we get sucking up to power due to social structure (whites have the power) and internalization. It is simple as that. Sorry, that is how you move in American society if you are a minority. For the case of Asian Americans, they view and operate upon the system differently. So please understand that while some of you may be frustrated with Asian Americans, there is much more to the story (I could go on with specifics, but I’ll still to the basics). In case you have not noticed, no, I do NOT like what some in the Asian American community are doing. Personally, I’d rather die as that “weird,” “creepy” Asian guy than live in that bullshit.

Asians can be veery racist, specially the Japanese, Korean and Chinese, thats based on my experience, they dislike darker people from other regions of the world, also blacks and hispanics, they love blonde nordic races, go figure why I don’t know.
Other parts of Asia are not that bad in that matter, its more mixed like everywhere really.
Also it depends on the person but facts do not lie.

Okay, that’s fair. It is good that you used “can” instead of “are”. Be careful on the term “Hispanic” though (Hispanic is NOT a race). In that regard, I would say that native East Asians are much more open to Hispanics of any race (look at the histories of the Caribbean, Central and South America, etc.)

I used to think that too about the Nordic people, but I now think it is much more trickier than that. There’s “whiteness” (race, skin color, whatever), and of course there’s the media. Although I acknowledge the “love” there certainly are condemners (for the same reasons above).

Other parts of Asia (Southeast) being “not that bad,” not necessarily true. There is more variability with skin color and such, so I guess they can relate to so other ethnicities and races. Just like everyone else however, there will be those not as welcoming.

Finding “facts” on racism is hard because you have to balance hard data with testimonials. For example, there was a Global Bank poll that asked this question: “Who would you NOT want as neighbors? The results for those that answered “different race” is the following: Japan got between 5-10% (error bars). China got 15-20%. S. Korea got 30-35%. This puts Japan well above average on “racial tolerance” or well below average on “racial intolerance,” China is a bit above average (I think the global average was 25-30%), and South Korea below average.

So the question then presents itself: “What does it mean?” Does it mean that Japan is automatically less racist than China and South Korea? Does nationality (especially when coupled with race) play a role here (immigrants was an option on the poll, but the coupling of race and nationality did not seem to be taken under consideration)? How do we know that there is not some social conditioning (laws and attitudes) or subtle racism involved here (e.g. “Okay I’ll let my neighbor be of a different race, does not mean I’ll talk to them”)?

I’m a Chinese living in Australia now, my opinion is that east Asian people share a same common value here that we don’t respect losers as we grow up in a highly competitive society. Nearly everybody without a big DAD need find their own success, otherwise their life will be completely screwed and crashed by the social system.

That’s why I feel east-asian more like to get close to white people because they need social ladder in a western society, but not because they really like or respect white people. It is not like most black people in American culture who are born to “know” white is high class (it’s not correct, but a fact in the culture), asian people in their original countries, rarely see white or black or brown color people, so they have no such built-in idea to to judge people by skin color.

To be honest, in my opinion, both white and black people look in very good body shape comparing to asian (if not fat), but white people have quite bad details, e.g. smelly and rough skin surface. Naturally we like white skin girls in our own groups even hundred years back before we saw any white or black guys. Poems which said icy white girls and milky like skins long long time ago.

Asian people have their own history and unique cultural things, so we don’t naturally respect western skin color, only low educated probably do have this attitude. We see black low, because Hollywood successfully told us in their movies, blacks in US are gangsters and native blacks in Africa are poor and killing each other like monkeys, thanks to CNN. In China, people call blacks “Hei Gui” means “black evil”, white foreigners as “Yang Gui Zi” means “Evil folks from sea”, Gui means ghost or monster or evil like thing. But these are bad words, everyone knows, in public people wouldn’t say this, we normally call “Lao wai” these days, i.e. foreign folks. I don’t think anybody in China (except true stupid ones) will not respect Obama as a successful person, also all kinds of black stars. We respect success, also hard work (even not successful). I think it should be common in any developed society if they have a little bit positive value and willing to compete in the world.

Those negative stereotypes you said about white people are exactly that: stereotypes. While we’re on the subject many westerners think Chinese people have bad body odor due to poor hygiene habits. Even within different Asian communities it’s the same: Thais think Chinese (mainlanders) smell, but they also think Indians smell and perhaps because Thailand is so hot (Bangkok has the highest average temperatures year-round of any city in the world) westerners are also stereotyped as smelly when in Thailand.

So, to paraphrase your last few paragraphs, it’s ok for Asians to racially discriminate because they identify most strongly with other Asians, while it is not ok for white people to do the same thing?
Your premise that Asians are taught race and racism by white people once they move overseas is very flawed. Have you ever visited Asia as a non-Asian? As a white person, I’ve been told that I’ll never understand what it is to have a happy family, and my marriage will probably end in divorce (among many, many other things). Contrary to what you have suggested above, there are very strong currents of racial discrimination and xenophobia among many Asian communities all around the world that can not be entirely attributed to white influence.
What you have done is effectively encouraged people to avoid taking responsibility for their actions by shifting the blame to someone else (the “whites”) in this case rather than confronting their own demons. Racial discrimination is wrong in any form, and as a Dutch-Canadian I must admit that we (white people) have done (and continue to do) some very bad things, and we still have a long way to go, however Asians are by no means exempt from prejudices and racial discrimination of their own, and in many cases can be just as bad as white people in their own way.
So rather than brushing off what we’ve done or pointing fingers, how about we all start to own up to our shortcomings and look instead at how we can all do better in the future? Saying “well, we’re not as racist as them” is just a way to avoid taking responsibility for oneself.

Blacks are the most racist and ignorant people of all. I work with predominantly black people and they ask me if im asian or korean. Most of them cant tell the difference between chinese korean japanese etc. They come into my store and walk right out because im korean yet they go next door and buy a black and mild or a 40oz from the liquor store. Well guess who owns that liquor store? Amazes me every day how much they havent evolved as people. You talk about how koreans in korea are ignorant.. well they have never really been exposed to black people. On the other hand im talking about blacks in the US. My coworker called me chinese and said we all look the same so I called her african and she got upset. Uhm hello? Where do you think your ancestors came from? Blacks call “the white man” a devil and play the victim card all the time its pathetic. Why do you think in a country with a black president you still cant escape that “black stereotype”? Blacks need to accept what happened in history and move on. Quit hanging onto the past by using it to justify the way you act as people.

This is probably the most stupid comment I’ve read this year, thus far. Black people are racist because they can’t tell the difference between a Korean and a Chinese person? Can you tell the difference between a Nigerian and a Ghanaian simply on appearance and accents? In fact, can you tell the difference between a African American and Liberian by appearance? I highly doubt it. Stop abusing the word racist. You call pathetic things like not being able to tell apart Koreans, Chinese people, etc. racist, yet go on at black people for playing the “victim card” when they’re actually discussing racism? Hilarious. Ho, sit down.
You *do* all look the same. Even East Asians have trouble telling themselves apart solely on appearance. This has nothing to do with you calling an African American, African. She was right to respond negatively to your racist ass. You claim that they come into your store, then walk out because you’re Korean, yet you have no proof of this. How could they possibly avoid a store for having Korean owners when a considerable number of the stores in their communities are owned by Asians, anyway? Again, take a seat. You’re just pulling random ish out of your ass in order to justify your racism and white worshipping. At the end of the day, you’ll never be white, so best get that through you thick skull now.

Whites are simply undeniably the most racist, cruel, and evil biological “race” of people in the history of the world. With the colonization of Asia, Africa, and North America, to the enslavement of the African people, to the virtual elimination of Native Americans, to the genocide of the Jews, to the nuking of Japan, to the invasion of the Middle East, to the present day oppression and racial discrimination of minorities, to the killing of Michael Brown and countless other African Americans, the list goes on and on and on…..

There is something called culture. Different culture,different thoughts.I’m a chinese myself from Malaysia,I can speak English, Mandrine and as well as Malay/Indonesian.Living in this multicultural country, we tend to understand and get to know other religions, races well.
Once more, without babbling any further, Cultural understanding is the answer.I want you to think about it. And please of course not every Asian are racist==, worst thing ever heard.

Interesting read. As somebody who’s heavily mixed (black, white, hispanic, arab, native american and asian is the easy way of putting it) and as somebody who grew up in very multi ethnic military town where there isn’t just a bunch of different kinds of people but actual mixing of those people, I wasn’t exposed to typical segregation of communities and racism till I left my hometown. I grew up with friends who were of a variety of different ethnic backgrounds and many of whom were mixed. Even the street I lived on, all the kids were different races but all the families got along no problem. I mean, it’s a military town. We’re going to have to mix.

Now a days as a generically brown man, when I come across racial problems, it usually isn’t from a specific group of people but rather a crappy individual. Sure I’ve had bad run ins with cops before but I’ve also had plenty of cordial ones. I have white ladies treat me bad in stores but I’ve had way more be absolutely super with me. I’ve had black people get ghetto on me but I’ve also had many more treat me like family. In all honesty, I haven’t had a negative racially charged run-in with an Asian person, not that I can recall at least and tbh when I get racially charged run-ins with people, it isn’t because of their skin color, their ethnicity, their religion, their gender, their orientation, their political views, etc. that cause them to be that way, it’s them and their own individual choices that made them act the way they did.

I’m one for people taking responsibility for their own actions and not labeling a group of people based on those actions. The actions of a few do not represent the actions of a whole and never will. Just because one person may say something stupid, doesn’t mean all people will or better yet, will even think about saying something stupid.

I accidentally moved to a poor neighborhood, attracted by the affordable rents and seemingly peaceful atmosphere. But, the abject treatment by the Vietnamese restaurant owners, when I wasn’t with my Vietnamese friends forced me to choose between trying to MLK it or just leave. I tried for about a year since one restaurant owner had a really kind son who CLEARLY attempted to overcome his father’s extremely rude treatment towards a customer. I loved their dishes and I really wanted them to believe that I was a “nice black person” so I’d tip well even when only the father was around for service. In the end, I had to leave, though. The uncomfortable stares because I was *different* was simply not ok. Also, when you live in a neighborhood where you can’t shop, visit a restaurant, or take a bus without being ogled whenever you’re NOT with your Vietnamese friends, life can get depressing really fast. I’d like to think that PEOPLE are smart enough to realize that NO ONE deserves to be treated that way. NO ONE.

I first came across the term ‘political correctness’ by reading a magazine cover story in the early 90s during my college years. I graduated with honors from a state university, but I didn’t get hired immediately. So I worked as a temp for several years which exposed me to opportunities and life lessons. After I earned a M.A. degree, I found a job as an adjunct professor and have worked in universities ever since. Throughout my adult life, I have encountered prejudices based on my race as an Asian American. But I never sought refuge in political correctness. I took the hits but I never gave in to the liberal ideology of playing the victim. So it’s 2015, and after 25 years of political correctness, the liberals are still following the same playbook in a losing battle. Racism sucks. Ageism sucks. Sexism sucks. But if people like Melissa Harris-Perry represents an advancement in human relations, you are mistaken. Political correctness is divisive and authoritarian. Look at the comments on this board. People who are insulted by the term “Native Indian” and “hard-worker” (as in the case with Harris-Perry) are living a life as a construct of their political ideologies, which insulates them and encourages their victim mentality. If I encounter racism in my life, I will never cry ‘foul’ and demand ‘justice’ with a bullhorn. I will work harder and get stronger and eventually overcome the obstacles in my way. That is true and authentic merit.

I think the question should be: is there more of an incidence of prejudice among “Asian” individuals compared to individuals from other minority groups?

To that questions, I would venture a yes.

Why? That’s complex to answer on a comment section but I think that many Asian-identified people have fallen victim to the far-right’s divide and conquer strategy, the one that differentiates between immigrants from Asia and Africa, LatAm, etc and posits that the former are somehow superior (many times the argument is made that the latter are genetically inferior)

I think that anyone, even without a background in psychology can see how attractive this “member of a superior ethnicity” status can become and not just to individuals with low self regard or narcissism, although those populations would certainly be more vulnerable to defending such ideologies.

But we need to admit that human nature makes us susceptible to any type of indoctrination that actually benefits us and our social status. “Racialism,” while it may hurt Asian people in some regards, mostly favors them and that’s why many of them have embraced it.

It may be bothersome to a person who isn’t particularly bright or mathematically inclined to be continually regarded as gifted or highly skilled in the exact sciences but it certainly is not as humiliating or disheartening as the perception that one’s ethnicity is simply and irreparably stupid.

I’m not positing that Asian people are morally bankrupt, I believe they’re simply succumbing to the very human desire to enhance their social status and as of today, the scientific racism community is giving them that chance while the antiracist community is asking them to join them in protesting an ideology that places them near the top of a racial caste system.

Lol, I read this entire thing, including the comments, and here is what I have to say:

1. To all of the white posters here claiming Asian racism and white innocence, GTFO pls. By and large, whites are just as sneaky and conniving, if not more so, than Asians. The difference is, whites will try to hide said sneakiness. And then when confronted, will deny to the death that they are covering up said sneakiness. Lol at you.

2. In this day and age, the typical Asian mindset is a particular kind of pathetic. The facepalm-worthy, ancestors-rolling-in-their-graves kind. It’s one thing to be racist, but to be racist only to those with colored skin, while simultaneously worshipping the ground walked on by their lighter-skinned counterparts is truly contemptible, reflecting not only your close-minded, narrow views, but more insultingly, demonstrates an inferiority complex.

You know it is very frustrating for me as a black man because very often I encounter situations that I receive blatant racism from the asian community but it is more so from individuals who come from abroad and not individuals who were born where I live. But what that tells me is that discrimination towards black people is something that has plagued the asian culture.

If you’re going to call “white” your backyard, I guess you’ll have to own all that is in it, which wasn’t my intention. I don’t think any individual white person is responsible for what all white people have done, neither the negatives nor the positives. Just as I wouldn’t call all of the accomplishments of Thomas Jefferson yours, I also don’t hold you responsible for his participation in slavery. The whole point of race is to group us such that we can be ranked in a hierarchy. The idea of the hierarchy came first, not race. None of us were the architects of this history of race, but we are it’s inheritors. I’m just pointing out what that inheritance seems to be. If that makes you angry, I’m sincerely sorry. That, in fact, wasn’t my point, though if you think in the terms I describe above, I guess your anger follows logically. Thanks for commenting. Comments like this drive up page views and are very helpful to the site.

I am a Chinese, and I had been confined during physical violence against a Black Woman who was laughing at me on the street. When she was being interviewed by a White Cop, the first thing she had accused me of was being racist. The other Black Cop, of course, took her side since he was Black. Scot Nakagawa, you seemed to think Asians are Racists because you aren’t accepted by most Asians, but that doesn’t mean we’re racists.

Officer Lai of San Francisco who texted that he hated gays, blacks, Indians, Hispanics and Indians who are gay (my attempt at levity) brought me here. I friended you on Fbook OP to keep the conversation rolling, although I admittedly am a victim of early burn out to such politics and foolishness if the past is any indication.

I have a question. I read a lot of the comments but not them all so someone may have already said something regarding this and that is the fact that to me when someone is talking about Caucasian”white” people that there are talking more about white Americans rather than British, Frame, Germany or other predominantly Caucasian countries. I understand this may not be the case but this is how to me some of the comments are coming across.

If your are meaning white people in general than my point is invalid but if you are meaning white people from a particular country I believe you should say so.

About Race Files

Race Files exists to take complex constructs about race and make them understandable. We use analogy, pop culture and personal narrative to create a language for the daily experience of dealing with racism that helps us to name our daily experiences of race and racism, and invites cross-racial solidarity.

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